I remember I saved a lot at an early age, and I
wrote down a specific goal to save $100K as soon
as I could after graduation. I wanted the
time, freedom, and the flexibility.
If something came up that I had the freedom to step
away and take time off.
Hi, I'm Carly DeFelice.
I'm 38. I make $58,000 a year.
I live full time in an RV in Austin, Texas.
My mom was balancing her checkbook when she went to
labor. At the time, my mom and dad had a barbecue
restaurant and that was actually going under.
And so I was born when there was financial chaos.
One of my friends was also a babysitter at the
nursery, and I remember she said, I can't wait
until my paycheck deposits.
And at the time, it was completely a foreign idea
that she actually would, like, spend that money.
The majority of the money that I made, I just kept.
And I grew up, I played soccer, and so I reffed
soccer games. So at the time I would make $20 for
an hour. And it was really important to me to
have my own sense of money.
For me, I consistently have cost of living around
$25,000, which is super low because I'm debt free
and I live in an RV. So when creating my budget I
keep it super simple.
I look at my fixed expenses versus my flex
expenses. I take an average of what I spend on
utilities, and then I have my health insurance,
my car insurance, I have RV insurance.
That's pretty much it.
The main expense that I have with my RV is the
lot. So the RV is paid in full itself, but I do have
to pay to park it.
This past month, I had unexpected expenses.
I ended up having that dreaded check engine
light come on. So I had a repair.
It was about $377.
I had to replace my bike tires and tubes.
The biggest thing is I have an emergency fund, my
emergency savings. I have over a year's worth of
expenses in the bank for a rainy day.
So I call this system weekly cash.
So I buy my necessities first.
So groceries, gas for my car and then whatever was
left would be happy hours and hanging out with
friends. It really takes the guesswork out of
budgeting. It's just like, can I afford
something? Can I buy this drink or whatever?
Look at my wallet. If there's money there, I'll
get it.
FIRE stands for financial independence retire early.
Basically, what you want to do is you want to build
assets 25 times your annual living expenses.
Then you can safely withdraw 4% and
effectively live off of that for the rest of your
life. So I reached coast fire by 26 with a nest egg
of over $100K.
What that means is I could simply just let that
money grow and work for me.
I graduated in December of 2008 with a finance
degree. Right when the Great Recession hit,
conveniently, all the financial markets crashed.
I owed about $35,000 in student loans and a car
loan. I ended up walking into my finance
professor's office hours and kind of being like,
what should I do about this whole job thing?
So at the height of the recession, I rolled up my
sleeves and I trained myself how to install home
security systems.
So I went from college student to entrepreneur,
selling and now installing home security
systems. So every year I didn't have a salary or a
standard paycheck. So I learned, though, to have a
separate business account and then pay myself a set
amount every month to kind of have a regular
budget. I had a roommate at the time, I was only
spending about $500 a month on my rent.
Having that low rent really freed up cash for
me to pay off my debt and also invest.
During that time, I did things like getting $15
haircuts where I would literally walk into the
hair salon, and with a bottle of water, they'd
spray my hair and just cut it.
I bought my groceries for the entire week for
$32.12. So one day I was on my
way to my office, aka Barnes and Noble, because
they had free internet and I pass by this
investment firm and it just hit me.
I was like, you know what? I have this finance
degree, I'm naturally really good with managing
money. I want to help educate young adults,
manage money.
And I created Best Money Class Ever.
It's a live and virtual personal finance class.
I help people do exactly the same thing that I do
to pay off debt and to invest.
I sold everything that I had and I just wanted to
get away. I wasn't exactly sure where or
what, but the first stop was a month in Hawaii, so
I was always curious about tiny living.
So I ended up getting an Airbnb in Hawaii and a
tiny home to test it out.
And I immediately loved the tiny space, so I spent
my days just doing whatever it was that I
needed or wanted to do.
I didn't want to haul it around because at first
everything was intimidating. I had no
idea how to do anything with the tanks, the black
water, the grey water.
Everything was like a foreign language to me, so
I wanted to kind of stay put in a spot.
Even though I had this big dream of like trying out
all these places and starting over in a new
place, I realized that I really craved my community
and went back to Austin, Texas.
I'm very extroverted person and so I was tired
of working from coffee shops and by myself.
I decided to go and work on my business at a
co-working space.
So when the pandemic hit, I started realizing I love
doing my class and speaking engagements and
live events. However, everything completely
changed. So then I turned to TikTok and doing
Instagram Reels, where I started filming very short
form little tidbits of meal planning and debt
payoff.
As a community manager, I get to do things that I
would naturally do in my day to day life.
When I was working there as a solopreneur with Best
Money Class Ever, I found myself having chit chat
with friends, office coffee talk, developing
relationships with people in a workspace.
I have mastered the art of being incredibly
social. Having an amazing social life and also being
good and saving my money.
And I think the way that I have found balance is I
realize that it is the experience with my friends
that matters. So it's catching up with a friend.
How is your week? How is this thing?
How is that enjoying the time with them?
If I do reach that million dollar mark, I
would feel confident of not having to bring in an
income with a standard day job or with my
business. For me, though, that's not the end goal.
I do feel like part of financial independence
that appealed to me is the time freedom.
I wanted to have, the freedom to spend my time
as I wish.
I don't necessarily want to retire.
I want to spend my life reaching people and
helping people turn things around with money.