Getting Financially Naked with J.D. Roth
Getting Financially Naked with J.D. Roth
I have an exciting November scheduled for all of you! I’ve decided to focus the entire month around the topic of Financial Independence. I’m going to speak to people who are pursuing it, people who have achieved it, and everything in between.
This topic is one that is near and dear to me. The idea of Financial Independence completely changed my concept of retirement and helped me reimagine a much more exciting vision of working, because you want to work and not because you have to work. There is no one path to Financial Independence, and I’m excited for you to hear more about this subject through different points of view.
Joining me today is my good friend J.D. Roth, who is actually going to be my first financially independent naked session. J.D. is going to share all of his digits and the financial choices he’s made since officially becoming financially independent almost a decade ago.
What are we drinking?
J.D. - The Upside Dawn from Athletic Brewing (non-alcoholic)
Shannon - Black Cherry Schweppes
Podcast Notes
J.D. struggles with depression and anxiety, and he is overweight, and he believes it is because he has been drinking too much. He stopped drinking on Independence Day and since then has lost 17 pounds and his mental health has improved. He wants to see how long he can go and he wants to see the effects on his health.
This is J.D.’s third time on the podcast. Previously, he was on Episode 9 and Episode 15.
JD is a very early investor in The Financial Gym. Years ago, just after Shannon hired her first employee, Bridget, and had the first Gym location, she had a large investor that was supposed to fund The Gym in February and it didn’t happen. She was running out of money.
Shannon ran payroll on March 15 for the two of them and then she had to pay back The Gym $2,500, because it had more bills than she did. That night, Shannon went to bed crying, because she didn’t have any money in her life.
The next day, on a Thursday, a friend said they would give her a $15,000 loan. On Friday, a $50,000 wire came in from J.D. Roth. It was St. Patrick’s day, and The Gym went from $0 to $65,000 in two days.
Two years before this, Shannon and J.D. talked about the idea of The Gym at a financial bloggers conference. It was something J.D. wanted to see happen and he hadn’t done anything with it until he wired the money.
To date, The Gym has worked with over 6,000 people. They have over 4,000 active clients.
One recent client win is a woman who came in with -$2,000 in her bank account. Now she has $7,000 in her bank account, paid down $4,000 of credit card debt, paid down $3,000 of IRS debt, and she just got a job making $34,000 more a year.
The current valuation of J.D.’s $50,000 investment in The Gym is over $169,000. The most recent round The Gym raised was over $2.00 a share and JD has 71,000 shares of Financial Gym stock.
J.D. grew up in rural Oregon in a family where his family didn’t really know how to manage money. His dad was an entrepreneur and spent money on big toys and his mother frittered money away on everyday small stuff. His parents were always trying to squeak by.
J.D. went to college in on a scholarship and graduated in 1991 without student loan debt, but he had the start of a credit card problem. Over the course of the next 10 to 12 years, he accumulated more and more credit card debt, consumer loans, car loans, etc.
In 2004, he had over $35,000 in consumer loan debt. It was a lot of money back then. Based on the prompting of friends, J.D. decided to take some action and started reading personal finance books.
He had started a blog in 1997, and as he was reading these books he decided to write an article called Get Rich Slowly. There isn’t a reliable way to get rich quickly, but there is a reliable way to get rich slowly, and he outlined the way to do it.
The article went the 2005 equivalent of “viral” and it led J.D. to start a website called Get Rich Slowly. Over the next three years he documented his journey of getting out of debt. He wanted to get out of debt, help others get out of debt, and maybe make a little money along the way.
His blog Get Rich Slowly led him to get rich quickly. He sold the website about three years after starting it and he became financially independent.
After that, he spent a few years wandering around and he took an RV trip across the country. In 2017, J.D. ended up purchasing Get Rich Slowly.
JD got out of debt in December 2007 and he quit his day job in March 2008. JD doesn’t consider himself financially independent, because so much of his money is tied up in his home and illiquid investments. He has $500,000 tied up in his house.
J.D. knows a lot about personal finance, but he does have blindspots.
Questions from the financially naked questionnaire:
Birthday: March 25
Employer: Self/Get Rich Slowly
Annual Income: None yet, building the business
Business Income: $5,000/mo prior to COVID, now $1,500/mo
Royalty Income (books): $3,000 per year
Checking Account (day-to-day expenses): $20,000
Fidelity Taxable Brokerage Account: $187,000
Fidelity Roth IRA: $11,000
Fidelity Rollover IRA: $170,000
Fidelity Solo 401(k): $310,000
House: paid $450,000 cash in 2017; $150,000 renovation; $500,000 worth
Financial Gym Investment: $50,000; valued at $169,000
Other financial startup: $50,000; valued higher
Loan to another person: $20,000
Family business: Part-owner; worth approx $30,000 - $50,000
Car Loan: $20,000, $330/month
Credit Score: 812 on consumer sites; 734 Equifax (Wells Fargo used for car loan)
1st Quarter 2020 Spending: $13,205; $4,000/mo; more like $4,500-$5,000/mo (highest expense is food)
Food: $600/mo; was $1,100-$1,200/mo in 2017
Sin Account: $500/mo in 2017-2018; dropped to $100/mo earlier, now $0
Health Insurance: $418/mo
Will: Yes, updated five years ago
Pets: Yes
Portland Timbers Season Tickets: $3,000, paid for 2021, will not renew
Broadway in Portland Subscription: $1,500/year
Short-term goals: Continue as is; participate in financial education and help other people
Long-term goals: make it to 59.5 on the resources he has (he is 51.5 years old)
Sacred Cows/Non-Negotiables: Pets, travel, entertainment
Shannon’s recommendations: Find liquidity in his home; fine tune spending areas
Earlier this year, J.D. wrote and recorded a course for Audible. It is a ten-part course on financial independence, where each part is a half an hour. The release date keeps getting moved back and should be available in February 2021.
Takeaway: My biggest takeaway is the value of constantly planning, even after you declare financial independence. Having extra funds gives you opportunities, but you never know which direction you will want to head down next, and having a plan in place will give you more confidence during those next steps.
Connect with J.D.
Website: Get Rich Slowly
If you have any topics you would like me to cover on this podcast, or if you’d like to get in the financially naked hot seat, I encourage you to email me to Shannon@fingyms.com, or join the private Martinis and Your Money Facebook group, and let me know what you want to hear.
If you’d like to make financial independence a goal for yourself sooner than later, I hope you’ll reach out to my team at The Financial Gym. We give the goal of FI to all of our clients and work with them on the best path to get there as soon as possible. Remember, Martinis and Your Money listeners get special promotions at The Gym. So head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com to get set up today.