Laura Roeder's Net Worth is $15M. Her Goal? A Business That Serves Life, Not the Other Way Around.

We spoke to Laura Roeder in this week's episode of Moneywise.

Laura is a software entrepreneur who bootstrapped her business Edgar to seven figures in just 11 months before selling it for single-digit millions. With a clear vision of "enough" money and a focus on lifestyle design, she's created a financial life that prioritizes family time and experiences over endless accumulation.

Like all Moneywise episodes, Laura breaks down her net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then I, your humble host, pick it all apart.

We also went deep on: why she believes in lifestyle businesses, how she avoids the endless pursuit of more, and why she still chooses to work despite having financial freedom.

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton, a private community for founders and entrepreneurs. They were having these amazing, transparent conversations about money, and we figured we'd make them public with this podcast. Hampton is a place for people who've started, built, and sold companies to connect, learn, and grow together. So if you're a CEO, founder, or business owner, check this out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

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Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Total Net Worth: ~$15 million ($10-11 million liquid + ~$5 million current business value)
• Real Estate: Primary home worth ~$2 million, plus ~$2 million in 3 other properties
• Investments:
  • 50% in VTI (Vanguard US fund)
  • 25% in Vanguard Global Fund
  • ~$1 million in bond funds
  • Small amount in dividend-focused funds
• Monthly Expenses:
  • $3,000 mortgage
  • $700 utilities/house bills
  • $1,000 groceries
  • $900 eating out
  • $200 kids' after-school activities
  • $300 weekly house cleaning
  • Travel (major expense) - ~$25,000 for a month in Spain
• Current Income: ~$12,000/month after tax from current business (combined with husband)
• Financial Goal: Originally $5 million liquid to live on 4% rule ($200,000/year)

Building Wealth with Purpose and Clear Boundaries

Laura's approach to wealth-building has always been guided by a specific target. "I had a financial goal to be able to live without working, basically, and I had a clear number that I always had in my head, which is if you have 5 million and you follow the 4% rule, you get 200,000 a year. I've always found that like 200,000 is plenty to have a really nice life."

Unlike many founders who keep moving their financial goalposts, Laura reached her target and feels content. She built her first software company, Edgar, with her husband and sold it after just a few years. "Edgar, we hit a million in annual recurring revenue, I think 10 or 11 months after launch," she explained.

When she sold the company, she didn't dramatically change her lifestyle. "We had always paid ourselves really well along the way... We were already living the lifestyle that we wanted. And then with the sale of the software business, that's what tipped us over to being able to have hit that five number."

Redefining Business Success: The Lifestyle Business Revival

Laura is passionate about reclaiming the term "lifestyle business" from its negative connotations in startup circles. "I'm trying to bring back the term lifestyle business, at least in like the startup world... people will be like, 'oh, so is it a growing business or is it a lifestyle business?'... It's bad. You don't want to be called a lifestyle business."

She challenges this perspective with remarkable clarity: "What is the point of having a business if it's not supporting the lifestyle that you want? I just genuinely don't get. I'm just like, get a job. If you don't care about having control over your lifestyle, like get a job, there's lots of them that pay a lot of money and go down that road."

For Laura, entrepreneurship was always about freedom first. "For me, it was actually the freedom that caught my attention," she recalls of her early days working as a designer. Seeing her actress friend's flexible schedule made her realize what she truly wanted: control over her time.

Money Is a Tool, Not a Scoreboard

Laura's philosophy on wealth is refreshingly straightforward: "The only point of the money is to exchange it for other things. That's the only point of it. Like it's easy to get caught up in growing the money, but the only point of growing the money is to trade it for like, the pizza and the hotel room and the after school club."

This perspective helps her make spending decisions without regret. "If we ever are like, 'oh, should we be spending this?' It's like, of course we should, because that's the only point in having it."

She and her husband have developed a practical approach to luxury spending: "If we have the money, we should spend the money because we never miss it later... Once the money's gone, it's gone. And it's fine because we can afford it."

Simplicity Brings More Happiness Than Excess

One of Laura's most valuable insights comes from observing other wealthy entrepreneurs. "I've been lucky enough to know a lot of really wealthy, successful entrepreneurs, and I've just been able to see firsthand that a ton of money does not add happiness to your life," she shares.

She distinguishes between financial security and excess: "Enough money to not have to worry about money is huge... That's a game changer. That's an amazing life. But adding extra houses in or having a $20 million house instead of a $2 million house, or having four cars instead of one car or whatever. Not only does it not increase your happiness... it often comes with massive downsides."

Laura points to other successful entrepreneurs who've reached the same conclusion: "I think a lot of people who are more like, cognizant of the life they want to live do reach that point where maybe they do make things bigger and then they go back and simplify."

Time Freedom and Family Focus

Despite having achieved financial independence, Laura still works part-time on her current software business, Paper Ballots. But her approach to work is entirely different from the typical founder grind.

She and her husband prioritize time with their children, even taking extended periods away from work. "Last year we spent six months traveling full time as a family... We were with the kids 24/7... It made our family so much closer and our kids so much closer to each other. It's where our family feels our truest selves, I guess."

Laura credits her husband with helping maintain this balanced perspective: "I think he's a really good partner for me... I could have been with someone else who would just encourage me to spend much less time with my kids, to just be working like crazy, to just be completely focused on the business. And I think my life is better for how I live it now."

Other Key Quotes

"I'm definitely a firm believer in like, keep your eyes on your own paper. You know, what other people have done really has nothing to do with me. Like they're not living my life."

"It's so cheesy, but you only get one life, you know? It's just what it comes down to... I'm so not a believer in this entrepreneur thing of like, 'oh yeah, you're going to hustle and grind for five years, but then it's going to get better.' It's like, do those five years of my life not matter?"

"Something I always say is like, keep your eyes on your own paper. You know, what other people have done really has nothing to do with me. Like they're not living my life."

"I think women are more willing to talk about it... I'm in like the subgroups that have just the women and there's so much talk about like, 'I feel like I just want to kind of step away from my business for a year, and I've given myself permission to do that.'"

Links You Might Like

• Edgar - The social media scheduling tool Laura built and sold
• Paper Ballots - Laura's current software business
• The 4% Rule - The retirement strategy Laura references

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Sam Parr: Hey everyone, it's Sam from Moneywise. Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to try out different correspondence for Moneywise, which means you're going to hear from different people telling different moneywise stories. Today's guest correspondent is Harry Morton. Now, here's what I need from you. Tweet at me. I'm at the Sam Parr. Let me know what you think about Harry. If you like him, we're gonna ask him to come on more and tell more stories. And if you don't, we won't. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode and let me know again. I'm at the Sam Parr on Twitter. Now back to the show.

[00:00:32] Laura Roeder: I think a lot of people who are more like cognizant of the life they want to live do reach that point where maybe they do make things bigger and then they go back and simplify.

[00:00:44] Harry Morton: When we start out making money, a lot of us have a goal number in mind. How much is all we need, and at what point does it all become unnecessary excess? The problem is that often once you've hit that number, the goalposts move. But for Laura Roller, they didn't.

[00:00:59] Laura Roeder: The only point of the money is to exchange it for other things.

[00:01:03] Harry Morton: When Laura started out, she set a goal to have $5 million liquid. And now, with a net worth of 15 million, she's more than hit. That and she's set. She doesn't see any reason to grow more. And here's the thing. She's really enjoying it. In this episode of Money Wise, she talks about how she keeps herself from getting on the endless treadmill for more. We'll learn how much enough was and what her lifestyle actually looks like. And speaking of lifestyle, we'll talk about why she says there's nothing wrong with running a business simply to support that lifestyle.

[00:01:30] Laura Roeder: What is the point of having a business if it's not supporting the lifestyle that you want? I just genuinely don't get. I'm just like, get a job.

[00:01:47] Harry Morton: I'm Harry Morton, and this is money wise. Instagram is full of quick tips on getting rich, but rarely do you find advice on handling life after wealth. But those conversations are happening right inside of Hampton, a, a community for CEOs and business owners. So we decided to make a podcast to make those private conversations public. On Moneywise, we talked to people who've made a ton of money and how it changed their lives. They get brutally honest about their finances, their expenses, portfolios, and the personal challenges that come with success and how they manage them. If you're a startup CEO, you've got to check out Join Hampton to connect with other really successful people. They put on a ton of awesome events throughout the year where you get to meet these people in person. So go check it out. Join Hampton Calm. We'll start by getting to that number. We talked about, the one that she came up with and is stuck to, about how much is enough for her compared to a lot of people we've spoken to on this podcast, that number is a bit surprising.

[00:02:42] Laura Roeder: I had a financial goal to be able to live without working, basically, and I had a clear number that I always had in my head, which is if you have 5 million and you follow the 4% rule, you get 200,000 a year. I've always found that like 200,000 is plenty to have a really nice life. It can be a bit nicer if you have a bit more. I couldn't tell you exactly when I formulated that goal, but that was definitely a number in my head for a long time.

[00:03:11] Harry Morton: Like I said, it's not an outrageously large number. And here's a spoiler she has a decent amount more than that, but let's back up. This conversation is basically about recognizing when you're content and adjusting your lifestyle and earnings to account for maximum happiness instead of accumulation. That's not nearly as easy as it sounds. The thing about building wealth is that more you have, the easier it gets, which means to stop and smell the roses. You need more of that willpower at every stage. And then there's the added factor of being surrounded by people who are more and more successful than you. You make a million. You're in a room of people that make ten. You make ten, and you're in a room of people who made 100 and so on. It's hard to look at those people and not think, oh, I guess I should be working at that too. And whether you know it or not, you are doing that. Willpower is something that Laura is full of, and that goes back to something that not all of us have a solid foundation.

[00:04:01] Laura Roeder: I was very lucky to get a really solid financial foundation. So my parents are great with money. They did talk to me about money, like they told me things like, never have a car loan. I remember that was a big one there. Like always, just get a car. You know that you can afford to pay in cash, don't get a loan for a car, never have any credit card debt. That was really important to my parents that like, no one should ever have any credit card debt. They didn't have any. So I think I was very lucky that I got some really good kind of basic financial concepts. My dad and my mom and, you know, they were married and they still are married. They do have completely different kind of scarcity mindsets. So my dad, when I was a kid, he had a Mercedes like, you know, which was like a really fancy. Like he really liked to have a nice car. My dad, he's an architect, so he's like a design kind of style guy. Like, he really likes mid-century furniture in his house, stuff like that. And my mom is just like, reuse every plastic bag 50 times, you know, you can only buy like like she gets everything from garage sales. She still loves, uh, in Austin, there's a day like they call it big junk day, where you put out, like, your big stuff out in the curb to get collected by the trash. And my mom's like, yeah, big junk day. Like free stuff. Like, last time I was home, she found a beanbag for the kids. She's like, look, they're gonna love this beanbag. I got it for free on Big Junk Day.

[00:05:25] Harry Morton: Amazing. I mean, that's quite a combo, right? So you've got, like, kind of your dad that likes mid-century furniture and Mercedes and your mom, who's, like, picking up beanbags off the side of the street. Like, where do you land on that spectrum?

[00:05:39] Laura Roeder: I'm like, well, I've never picked a beanbag up off the street. Oh, well, that's not true. It's not beneath me. It's not beneath me. So yeah, I definitely am more on my dad's side where I will buy myself nice things, but I do often have to give myself a kind of pep talk. Like to jump ahead a bit. I think one of the most to me extravagant spending I've ever done is hire a really amazing interior designer for our house. So I love interior design, always read interior design magazines, and I had always wanted to work with an amazing designer, but it was just this thing in my head where I'm like, that's so expensive. They probably pick out really expensive furniture and really expensive everything. And when we renovated this house we're in now, I was like, this is my chance. I'm going to do it. I'm going to go for it. I'm going to hire someone. You know who I really love? Their portfolio, even if they're expensive. And I really, really, really had to convince myself, you know, that it was okay to spend money on something so kind of frivolous, I guess.

[00:06:41] Harry Morton: And were you okay with it when you pulled the trigger?

[00:06:44] Laura Roeder: Yeah. I mean, I always find, like, this is something that my husband and I always talk about. If we have the money, we should spend the money because we never miss it later. Like, every time we're talking about, oh, should we, you know, fly business class internationally or something, we're like, oh, it's so expensive. But then we've never done it and remembered it a second after we spent the money. Once the money's gone, it's gone. And it's fine because we can afford it. It's not putting us in any sort of financial hardship. So I do find that once the charge has gone through, I never regret it or second guess it.

[00:07:14] Harry Morton: A foundation like that has helped Laura a lot in staying true to her values. But for a lot of us, our origin story isn't like that.

[00:07:20] Laura Roeder: I am grateful for my upbringing, like I do feel like I have a very fortunate to have a very strong, like mental health base. And sometimes you hear entrepreneurs being like, you know, I'm motivated by like my dad abandoning me, or I have like this chip on my shoulder, like, I, I'm not motivated by that, which I, I do think I'm grateful for.

[00:07:42] Harry Morton: Well, I genuinely think that's a big part, like so many of the founders that I know from a bunch of the communities I'm in, I've had these conversations and and I share it in common with them. It's I'm definitely a chip on the shoulder guy. There's a lot of family stuff that like, definitely gives me that that drive. And I've many years of therapy have proven that to be true. I'm always fascinated by folks who have so much more balance and do things intentionally and are and are healthy, basically. Like, by the way, through all of this therapy, I'm really like, I'm good with it. Like I it's just who I am. And I'm like, it's a part of me. And now I understand it. I can work with it in a more intentional and healthy way. And honestly, I'm kind of grateful for it because here I am, in a beautiful home with a family that I love and doing work that I find really gratifying. I certainly wouldn't be where I am, were it not for that chip on my shoulder. So it's kind of like a anyway, there's no one answer, but I just I think it's really interesting to meet people that are really successful, that are also healthy.

[00:08:37] Laura Roeder: And it's something that I've had to learn over the years. So I think a positive thing of being not fitting in in various ways. So just being female, obviously I am always the minority in all the spaces I'm in, you know, embracing the lifestyle business thing, working part time, having not raised VC. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to kind of like, hide it or feel embarrassed about it, like, oh, I shouldn't say that. I work part time. I should be more ambitious and working full time. Or I remember when I first started really working for myself and building a business. I would go to this conference and they'd be like, oh, you know, entrepreneurs all have A.D.D.. And I was like, I don't have A.D.D. and I was like, oh, I'm not a I'm not a real entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have yeah, entrepreneurs have A.D.D. and they have 100 projects going on. And it sounds funny, but even being like, oh, I don't have a chip on my shoulder, we can take anything and be like, oh, I'm not real. Entrepreneurs are crazy and have a million projects and have childhood trauma. And like, you know, we can take anything and be like, oh, that other thing is, is how it should be. But I think over the years I've come to embrace like, yes, I am. I mean, I'll always be a woman, if not anything else. That makes me a total outsider and I absolutely can't change that. So just go with it. Just embrace that. I don't fit in. I'm not doing things the normal way. I can always find things about myself that other people will say are not the right way to do it, and I can't change that. So just run with it and do it the way I actually want to do it.

[00:10:07] Harry Morton: What it comes down to is this going into this journey, we all have advantages and disadvantages. If you want to have a healthy relationship with your drive and motivations, you have to understand what those advantages and disadvantages are to you and work through them. That can mean joining a community, talking to friends and family and it definitely means therapy. But let's hang out here for a second and talk more about Laura's drive. Lots of founders have people they look up to who have built amazing businesses and created huge impact in the world. People like the obvious example Steve Jobs and if not Steve, then someone else, some other business person. But Laura's inspiration to start her own business came from a very unlikely place.

[00:10:48] Laura Roeder: So for me, it was actually the freedom that caught my attention. So I had the epiphany. My best friend from university was an actress, so she was living in LA where I would later move, and I was living in Chicago. And when she would visit me in Chicago, I like couldn't hang out. I would work till six, so we'd have time, like, you know, to have dinner. But that was kind of it. I couldn't take a day. I only had my, you know, American ten days off a year or whatever. Like I couldn't take a day off to hang out with her. And when I went to LA, even though at the time she was, like, working at restaurants, it's not like she had some amazing career. She was like starting her acting career working at restaurants. But she had tons of time freedom. Like when I would go see her, she could hang out with me during the day. She'd be like, I'll just do the shift. Like I'll do an extra one the day before you come. And I'm like, this is better. I like her life better because she gets to control her days. And that's actually what led me to be like, okay, how could I control my day? And I actually first asked to go part time was my idea. I'm like, okay, I'm going to have best of both worlds. I'm going to go part time and start getting my own clients. And actually my boss agreed to that. But then right the day before I was meant to start, she said, I remember she said, well, if you go part time, everyone will want to go part time. I was like, well then I have, I have to quit and that's what I did.

[00:12:09] Harry Morton: Yeah. Awesome. So you made the decision for like the start was kind of a lifestyle. What was the is there anything more to that? Was it just you just wanted freedom of your time? Was there anything kind of lifestyle wise that you could see even that early, that you were kind of shooting for.

[00:12:22] Laura Roeder: Lifestyle and financial? Definitely. Because, yeah, I was in my first job. I think I was making 28,000 a year, and I definitely wanted to make a lot more. I was just doing the math, like I lived in Chicago in the time in Wicker Park, and I would look up the house prices for like, the really nice houses around the park. And I'm like, I'm never going to get that house on 28,000 a year. It doesn't matter how much I save up. Like the math ain't math. So I definitely thought, okay, I want to have a nice house. I want to be able to go on vacation sometimes. Like nothing crazy. But just like this salary that I'm at isn't going to let me have the life that I'm looking for.

[00:13:00] Harry Morton: How much money did you think you needed? Did you have, like, a financial goal in mind? Even that early?

[00:13:05] Laura Roeder: Yes. I definitely wanted to make six figures, which is funny because I think that's still like, I feel like everyone who starts as an entrepreneur, it's still the same goal is like, get to six figures a year. And that that was my goal.

[00:13:21] Harry Morton: This is also the point in time when Laura starts her first business. She transitioned her freelance graphic design work first into a social media consulting business and then into an online course business. This is back in the 2000, way before the market exploded.

[00:13:35] Laura Roeder: My first course was about Twitter. The first time I sold it, I made $3,000, something like that. And I was like, oh, I used to like hustle to get one client. You know, for $3,000. And now I just did, you know, I would do like a live promotional webinar to sell it and make the money. And I was like, this is amazing. And I definitely made six figures in the first year of that, probably before a year in that business.

[00:14:00] Harry Morton: B-school grew rapidly to the point where it became more than just a side gig, and Laura didn't want that, so she left. She had her co-founder buy her out.

[00:14:14] Laura Roeder: I don't know how else to say it besides it. Like wasn't my calling. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I also knew so all my course businesses I was the face of, you know, like most course businesses are right. You're learning from me. And it was the same in B-School. We were both the face of it. In retrospect, I wonder if our partnership could have lasted longer, if she had just been the face of it and I had just run it behind the scenes, that might have worked better, but I don't know. We didn't think of that at the time or something, I don't know. So I also had my head like like I've told you, if I find a better model, I'm going for it. What I didn't like about my model is that it was so tied to me, so the business couldn't really grow without me. The business couldn't. It was all tied to me. At the end of the day, it wasn't a very sellable business, both B-School and my own courses. So that was something where I was consciously thinking and for me, like having kids was a big motivator. I've always known that I wanted to have kids, so I'm like, I'm going to have kids in the future. I want a business that I can take a lot of time off from and isn't relying on me like being the live teacher person.

[00:15:18] Harry Morton: After the buyout. Laura had a decent amount of money saved up.

[00:15:21] Laura Roeder: I had made good money over the years, running the court like I had made, like, I don't know, low to mid six figures every year running the course businesses. And you know, I had never spent a ton, so I already had good money saved up with selling to my partner. Like I was able to buy a house in Venice, California, which is not a cheap place to live. So that worked out well.

[00:15:43] Harry Morton: But it still wasn't that 5 million goal. So she followed a new passion Software. This time her partner was her husband.

[00:15:50] Laura Roeder: We met in 2012 and Edgar launched in 2014.

[00:15:55] Harry Morton: Did you start that with the very clear definition of like, we're building a company to sell it? Was that the plan from day one, or was the plan to just build a good business and then selling came later?

[00:16:06] Laura Roeder: We were definitely building a company to be sellable. I don't think I was like, I definitely want to sell this. I'm like, Maybe I'll love running it for 20 years. But we were building it to be sellable. And a big factor in that story is that I always know when we started building Edgar, because my son was born in January 2015, and Edgar launched like a few months before he was born, so I know it launched at the end of 2014. So we launched this business knowing that I was going On mat leave a few months after the launch. And so now I'm always like, everyone should go on parental leave, right? Right after they launch a business. Because it was an amazing forcing function to that the business had to not rely on me. I'm like, this business can't rely on me because I'm not going to launch it and then have it fall apart three months later. Like that doesn't make any sense. And it was bootstrapped, but it was like bootstrap, self-funded. Like we used our team from my course business to run Edgar. So we had like right from the beginning. I'm like, we have to have a team in place to run this thing because I'm going to be completely out for a few months. And of course, my co-founder coding, it was also had a baby, right? And so he wasn't going to be 100%, but he was going to be largely out also. So we designed it from day one so that we could both take a lot of time off, which in retrospect was just absolutely perfect because that's kind of how we've designed our businesses ever since.

[00:17:32] Harry Morton: Yeah. That's amazing. So what was your income during those? So you have your baby. You've got the business launched. What were you earning then at that point?

[00:17:40] Laura Roeder: I mean, I feel like I've always kept my salary around, like 200,000 a year. And then, you know, my husband would be similar. So like 3 to 400,000 combined. That's probably like a before tax number.

[00:17:56] Harry Morton: Sure. So was that did Edgar just take off like really fast then was the revenue. So you were making hundreds of thousands like right out of the gate? Pretty much.

[00:18:04] Laura Roeder: So, Edgar, we hit a million in annual recurring revenue, I think 10 or 11 months after launch.

[00:18:10] Harry Morton: Yeah. That's bonkers. That's so cool. Um, when did you decide to sell and when did you sell?

[00:18:16] Laura Roeder: So it all happened very, very quickly. So I, I was kind of playing around with different ways to. I'm like, do I want to this business to just run with a team without me for a while I played with like, okay, I'm just going to kind of put it in maintenance mode and it's not going to be actively developed, but it's going to kind of chug along and be a really high cash flow. But then I was like, no, I just feel ready to be complete with it and and be done with it entirely. So actually, from when I decided to sell it to when I did sell, it was a six month process altogether.

[00:18:48] Harry Morton: And so how much did you sell for?

[00:18:49] Laura Roeder: So I sold I always say single digit millions is what I sold for. So somewhere between 1 and 10.

[00:18:55] Harry Morton: How much did you personally make. Like did that all came to you and your husband, or was there any other kind of partners in it, or did you have any other bills to pay? It was literally just like all the cash straight into your account.

[00:19:04] Laura Roeder: Just the tax man. Yeah, just the tax man. So yeah, 100% of it. Yeah. It was owned by my husband and I. Yeah.

[00:19:13] Harry Morton: That was in 2019. And that's when she hit the initial goal of 5 million. There's a few things to talk about here. And we're going to get to them all. The obvious one is that we're very shortly going to talk about her current net worth and break down her expenses and investments and all that good stuff. We're also going to talk about why she started another business if the goal was to not work. And of course, we'll talk more about how she mentally is able to keep herself from getting to the never ending treadmill. But first, let's quickly look at how her life changed immediately after the exit. Did you have any, like, celebratory purchases? Did you do anything extravagant at all?

[00:19:46] Laura Roeder: It was mostly sticking to the index funds, so we were in the middle of a house remodel. Like if it was a movie, you would have us buy the house after the exit. But the truth is, we had already bought the house and already started the model, you know, before the exit. The narrative isn't isn't quite as nice, but yes, we did. We did the house to all the marble, all the marble that we wanted, you know, hired the fancy interior designer, got the fancy custom curtains. I always joke that a Japanese toilets were like my my trophy for selling my business, because we have only Japanese toilets in the house.

[00:20:19] Harry Morton: I want a fountain to squirt up my butt instead of wiping. That sounds amazing. I'm sold. But they're so expensive. There's a piece of advice we've given a lot throughout this podcast, and the reason it keeps coming up is because it's so important. Having a massive amount of money will change you. It's a bit of a mind fuck, and managing it mentally is a skill you build. So when you're introduced to being wealthy on this level all at once, you rob yourself of that ability to build the skill. Laura didn't do that.

[00:20:48] Laura Roeder: We had always paid ourselves really well along the way, and actually the way that I think of it was a lot of it was about if your business is having financial troubles, the owner should not be the first to go, which is a lot of people's instinct if their business, you know, has less cash flow, if revenue is down, they stop paying themselves, which is like, no, the whole point of the business is to pay you. If your revenue is down, you need to cut your expenses. You likely need to cut your team. Don't stop paying yourself because you've missed the point. You've missed the whole point of the business is to pay you. So I always paid myself well over the years. So we we were already living the lifestyle that we wanted. And then with the sale of the software business, that's what tipped us over to being able to have hit that five number. Like to have five. Just, you know, not in retirement accounts, not in houses, but just 5 million. Liquid you know, in the stock market.

[00:21:41] Harry Morton: This ties into another core belief that Laura has about business. The point of a business doesn't always have to be about huge growth.

[00:21:48] Laura Roeder: I'm trying to bring back the term lifestyle business, at least in like the startup world, lifestyle business people will be like, oh, so is it a growing business or is it a lifestyle business? You know, does this business actually have value or is it a lifestyle business? It's bad. You don't want to be called a lifestyle business. But I'm like, what is the point of having a business if it's not supporting the lifestyle that you want? I just genuinely don't get. I'm just like, get a job. If you don't care about having control over your lifestyle, like get a job, there's lots of them that pay a lot of money and go down that road. So I think the whole point of a business, and I do think that most entrepreneurs are super interested in the freedom and flexibility and control. But then people kind of lose sight of that or don't believe that they can actually have that.

[00:22:36] Harry Morton: And that ties into another belief that is at the core of her value system. What money is actually for?

[00:22:43] Laura Roeder: The only point of the money is to exchange it for other things. That's the only point of it. Like it's easy to get caught up in growing the money, but the only point of growing the money is to trade it for like, the pizza and the hotel room and the after school club. So if we ever are like, oh, should we be spending this? It's like, of course we should, because that's the only point in having it.

[00:23:06] Harry Morton: Yeah, but it's so easy to get caught up in a scarcity mindset. I actually scarcity mindset is kind of a phrase that annoys me, but like it's easy to to come from a position of like, oh fuck, but what if this all goes away, you know?

[00:23:17] Laura Roeder: Right. And I do think about the what if what if it all goes away. And I actually think that that's a really useful thing to think about, because if it all goes away, it's like we'll live with our parents. And our parents are really nice. Yeah. You know, like, that's that's the worst situation. Like, that's not that bad at all.

[00:23:35] Harry Morton: It's funny because when I started my business, a lot of my friends, like the people that were not business people or kind of like entrepreneurially minded, a lot of them were just like, wow, that's really brave. And I was like, why is it brave? I was just waiting tables like, and I had negative money. So like, if I if this fails, I'll just go back to waiting tables and having negative money and like scrounging sandwiches off people's plates, it's like it's fine. But yeah. But as things grow, that thought gets kind of scarier. And I could definitely feel slightly differently about it now. And here we get into one of the main pillars that support Laura's happy and balanced relationship with her wealth. Wealth to her is lifestyle control, not a number in the bank. The number in the bank is just the item that supports that chosen lifestyle, and that was always the goal for her. But it is time to get into those numbers. So just how much is in the bank?

[00:24:22] Laura Roeder: So now not including my current business. It's like I'm just trying to do the math. I think it ended up around like 10 or 11 million, like total net worth. You know, there's a few houses in there. So you're always just kind of making up a random number what they're worth. But so yeah, about 10 or 11 million net worth without my current business and then my current business, you could call it, I don't know, worth about 5 million now obviously depends on when we sell it, who wants to buy it, whatever. But yeah, that gives you a ballpark.

[00:24:51] Harry Morton: Cool. And how much is your house worth?

[00:24:54] Laura Roeder: The house that I live in is worth about 2 million. And then we have about a little more than 2,000,000 in 3 other properties.

[00:25:05] Harry Morton: So tell me, how do you invest your money? You've mentioned some real estate. So just can you talk to me about your portfolio generally.

[00:25:11] Laura Roeder: Yeah. So portfolio is, um, mostly index funds. So I'm just looking at the. So 50% is VTI. That's the Vanguard US fund. And then I think about yeah, 25% is Vanguard Global Fund VCS us. And then about a million in a bond fund. And then a little bit in some like right. And like dividend focused funds but mostly just really broad index funds.

[00:25:41] Harry Morton: And what are your monthly expenses?

[00:25:44] Laura Roeder: So I had to look this up for this interview because as I told you, I had absolutely no idea what my monthly expenses were. I actually didn't even know how much my mortgage was, because my that comes out of my husband's account.

[00:25:57] Harry Morton: And that's such a baller move. That's such a baller move. I don't I don't know, it's just it's not very worried about it.

[00:26:04] Laura Roeder: It's not very much. So the mortgage is about 3000 a month. So I'm sure people are like being like that. Math doesn't add up. It's because we we didn't get a mortgage for it. We just paid off most of the house and then got like a smaller mortgage. That's how you can have a $2 million house for 3000. So the mortgage is 3000 a month, about 700 a month, and other house bills about 1000 a month on groceries, 900 a month eating out. You know we don't have a car payment. Kid expenses. My kids go to state schools, so we don't pay for school. We pay about $200 a month for a few after school clubs. We pay 300 a month to get our house cleaned every week. And then our big expense, which is harder to put numbers around, is travel.

[00:26:45] Harry Morton: So that's the big sort of lifestyle decision you've made to enjoy the cash now or kind of live life now. Like, yeah, talk to me more about travel and why you choose to spend so much money on it and kind of how you how you square the numbers on it and your sort of philosophy around it in general. I'm really interested.

[00:27:01] Laura Roeder: Yeah. So my husband and I love to travel. We also love to travel with kids, which is more unusual than than loving to travel. So we've always done months off. So even like when Edgar was like at its height, you know, big thriving business. I remember when my son was two, we took a month off and went to Japan for a month. So we've always really valued that. And last year we spent six months traveling full time as a family. So we went in to kind of check in mode at work. That's the priority for family time. I mean, we were with the kids 24 over seven. You know, we weren't just to be clear, we weren't traveling with nannies or anything like that. Um, it made our family so much closer and our kids so much closer to each other. It's where our family feels. Our truest selves, I guess.

[00:27:53] Harry Morton: That's so cool, I love it. By the way, I remember ages ago you were talking about hiring a private chef, and you had a personal assistant for a while. They're like, do you have any of those things anymore?

[00:28:03] Laura Roeder: We've gone on and off with that stuff over the years, which I think is kind of interesting, actually, because I think people tend to view that stuff as like a black and white or kind of a step up in your life. Before we went traveling, we had a chef that made us dinner every night, and when the kids were little, like, that was amazing. It was a great use of money after we went traveling and obviously had to make our own food every day. We kind of decided this is something that we want to do. For me personally, I never learned how to cook and I was like, this is ridiculous. I have to eat three meals a day for the rest of my life. Like I want to add that skill in. And yeah, I've had assistants over the years. Like when I lived in LA, I had an in-person personal assistant, which was amazing. You know, when the kids have been little, like, sometimes we have nannies, sometimes we don't for like various hours. We just we always try to really check in with, like what? What feels good for this stage of life.

[00:29:00] Harry Morton: And so other than that, there's really nothing that you spend significant sums of money on. There's not like, you know, big, you know, longevity, health spends or fancy cars or private jets or any of this kind of stuff.

[00:29:11] Laura Roeder: No, I mean, so an idea I love from Ramit Sethi is like, think about the things you have unlimited budget for. So we do have a home gym. My husband loves to buy like the most weird random workout equipment. Like he gets into these little. He'll be doing this program and he's like, I have to buy this thing to like, work my ankle. Like, he had this special thing where you move your foot up and down with like, a weight on. I'm like, what is this? It's like the most single use equipment I've ever seen in my life. So we're like, okay, yeah, any kind of workout thing, health thing we'll spend unlimited on. And so I do have some travel numbers, like I just looked up when we were in Spain for a month, we spent about 25,000 total.

[00:30:00] Harry Morton: So now we have to reconcile something. Laura has focused on wealth building solely to support the lifestyle that she and her family want. And now they have that. But they have since started another business and are currently working on it.

[00:30:12] Laura Roeder: So why my business now is paper ballots, another software business, and I actually started it before we sold Edgar. So along the journey in Edgar, we had a team running it. We were able to play around with other businesses and we started Paper Belt. So even though we could just live off our investments now, we do still love running SAS businesses. So I am still working now. You know, like I mentioned, we both work part time, but the business is successful. It does provide us a great income in addition to our investments.

[00:30:51] Harry Morton: Yeah. Okay, awesome. What is that income.

[00:30:54] Laura Roeder: So the current business pays us both about 12,000 a month after tax combined.

[00:31:01] Harry Morton: But I've got to ask, like, if you're happy right now with your lifestyle right now, why? Why bother at all?

[00:31:07] Laura Roeder: I mean, it is something that I check in with myself regularly, and I am still excited about it because. And some days I wake up and I'm just like, I'm just ready to sell this today. I'm done with this. But I'm like, oh, but I want to see. I, we have this project coming up and I want to see where oh, and we haven't tried this thing yet. So that shows me that I am still enjoying it. And there are still parts of it that I, I want to grow and I want to explore.

[00:31:32] Harry Morton: I'm also interested because you've got this financial independence, right? You've got all this money in the bank. It's, you know, you can do the 4% rule and live very comfortably. Were you tempted to swing big, like you have this platform where you could have gone, all right, we could do another business, which is, you know, a software business which we can kind of work a small amount of hours and so forth, like, yeah. Is there any part of you that wants to kind of go after like a big thing, knowing that there's kind of no pressure to, like, have to succeed?

[00:31:58] Laura Roeder: I just always tell myself that, you know, God willing, I'll have more years. And and if I want to do that, I'll do that. So right now, it's not what I want to do. Like maybe after my kids are grown, I'll want to raise 40 million and have that experience. And I can do that if I want to.

[00:32:20] Harry Morton: Laura knows herself well. She understands what she wants, why she wants it, and because of that, she's able to keep herself grounded, although sometimes her husband does keep her in check.

[00:32:30] Laura Roeder: I think he's a really good partner for me, you know? I think, yeah, I could have been with someone else who would just encourage me to spend much less time with my kids, to just be working like crazy, to just be completely focused on the business. And I think my life is better for how I live it now.

[00:32:48] Harry Morton: But not everyone is going to be a good influence, especially in a world where continuous growth is mostly seen as a positive thing. As founders, the urge to compete and one up the competition is paramount to successful business. But in real life, that strength is a weakness. Laura is constantly around people who are accomplishing more by certain metrics at least, and are earning much, much more. Here's how she keeps herself from comparing herself to them.

[00:33:13] Laura Roeder: I try to remind myself that everyone's journey is different, and a lot of it is. I was going to say a lot of it is luck, and that sounds like derogatory, but I mean it for myself as well. Like when you it's it's luck, it's motivation. It's purpose. So it's like we're all on different paths. We're all on different journeys. We've all made different choices. Something I always say is like, keep your eyes on your own paper. You know, what other people have done really has nothing to do with me. Like they're not living my life.

[00:33:46] Harry Morton: Yeah, I just really struggle with that. No, it's not that I struggle, I just compare. It's so easy to compare and it's so easy to just peer over the fence and go, oh, that looks cushy. I, you know, when I'm there. That's basically the narrative. I always tell myself when I get to that point, then I'll be set. And I just know that when I get to that point, there'll be the next point. That will be the one where I'm set.

[00:34:05] Laura Roeder: Absolutely. And it's helpful knowing people who are farther along on the journey and knowing that they don't have everything figured out. Like, no, I'm not talking about anyone we've mentioned on the podcast, but I've met hugely successful people that are just horrible alcoholics and drug addicts and are just like, barely making their way through the day, yet somehow are running this, this billion dollar business. Like. Absolutely. All types of people are very wealthy. Some people get very wealthy, just absolutely scamming other people. You know, like just looking at how much money someone has is like not a good metric for if you want their life or not.

[00:34:40] Harry Morton: Do you think there are people in the founder community that that are like you, but don't realize they're caught up in, in this whole thing of kind of striving and wanting more?

[00:34:49] Laura Roeder: You know, something nice about being a woman is I find a lot of women are more willing to talk about it. Like especially it's really interesting. You know, you and I are in some of the same like entrepreneur groups. And then I'm in like the subgroups that have just the women and there's so much talk about like, you know, I feel like I just want to kind of step away from my business for a year, and I've given myself permission to do that. And I really want to focus on myself and my own health and my own growth. And like, I think it's brilliant that women are having these conversations. And in some ways, it's like we've already been so dismissed that we're like, well, might as well just quit. Like, you're not you're not taking me seriously anyway. And I kind of want to quit for a year. So like, I guess I'll just go ahead and do it, you know, like, because we don't fit in from the start. Like, it kind of gives us more freedom. And I think there's probably even more men who are like, oh, I'd kind of like to work part time and spend more time with my family. But they're like, not even allowing themselves to entertain that thought because it's so outside of how they've been taught to be.

[00:35:53] Harry Morton: Yeah. Do you have any advice for those kind of people?

[00:35:56] Laura Roeder: It's like so cheesy, but you only you only get one life, you know? It's just what it comes down to. Like something I think about all the time is like, would I, would I feel okay dying today? Something I always think, like, I don't want to die today, but I want to feel like, yeah, if I died today, I was happy with the choices that I made. I was happy with where my life is. I'm so not a believer in this, this entrepreneur thing of like, oh yeah, you're going to hustle and grind for five years, but then it's going to get better. It's like, do those five years of my life not not matter.

[00:36:33] Harry Morton: Before we close, there's something important to talk about. This episode is about two things lifestyle and money. There are two things that are intertwined and severely impact each other, but they are still two separate things. Seeing them as separate things, but respecting the relationship they have is how Laura has been able to find the sweet spot for her and her family's happiness. There's another crucial mistake that people often make when building their wealth, and that is conflating those two things. Money is a way to support the lifestyle you want, but the lifestyle you want doesn't need to be the same as the lifestyle you can afford. Of course, that's only true if you have more money, not less. But that's not what this podcast is about. When you start making more and then upscale your lifestyle to match, you're doing two things. You're shunning away from the part of you that thinks about what you actually want, and you start to overcomplicate your life. Laura knows that there are more things she could afford and have, but having those things doesn't mean your life will be better because of them. In fact, it often has the opposite effect.

[00:37:32] Laura Roeder: I've been lucky enough to know a lot of really wealthy, successful entrepreneurs, and I've just been able to see firsthand that a ton of money does not add happiness to your life. Enough money to not have to worry about money is huge is absolutely huge, right? Like, we don't have to think about which after school clubs we want to send our kids to. They can sign up for whatever they want. We always buy the organic groceries whenever we want. Like that's a game changer. That's an amazing life. But adding extra houses in or having a, you know, $20 million house instead of a $2 million house, or having four cars instead of one car or whatever. Not only does it not increase your happiness, I mean it can be neutral. Like if you're someone who likes cars, you can certainly get enjoyment out of buying some cars and it can be fine and no big deal. But it often comes with massive downsides. But like a wealthy person that I've known a long time is is Noah Kagan. A lot of people listening would probably know who he is. I know, like he tweeted about recently, that he's selling off a lot of his investment properties because, like, he already has plenty of wealth. He doesn't need them.

[00:38:47] Harry Morton: Right? It's just headache, right?

[00:38:49] Laura Roeder: If you have the most amazing property manager, they still have to be like, hey Noah, it flooded. Fyi, I've got the flood people out like you. Still like you still know about what's what's going on, you know. Totally. And I think a lot of people who are more like, cognizant of the life they want to live do reach that point where maybe they do make things bigger and then they go back and simplify.

[00:39:14] Speaker4: I swear you're the gold. I've been running for it like I woke up in one the top rock.

[00:39:21] Harry Morton: I don't know about you, but I listen to a lot of business podcasts, and I find it incredibly easy to get sucked into this game of constantly moving the goalposts and always looking to get to that next level and judging myself based off the successes of other people. But what I find so inspirational about conversations with people like Laura is that level of self-awareness and that ability to understand two things a what you need in order to make you happy, and understanding what that cap is and not needing to go beyond it, and also this capacity to really enjoy the journey. And that sounds kind of corny, right? But I think it's so important. It's so easy to get caught up in more and more and more. But actually, if we're not enjoying what we're doing on a day to day basis and doing what we're doing intentionally, then you know, why did we start a business in the first place? And if this conversation gave you something to think about, you've got to check out Hampton. Hampton is the company that makes this podcast. I'm a member, and inside of that community, people are having conversations like this all the time. There are members who have got single digit millions in net worth. There are people like Laura with tens of millions in net worth. There are people with hundreds of millions in net worth. And the conversations that are happening inside of there, just like this, are incredibly open and honest in a way that you just never see anywhere else, and you just can't get access to them unless you're inside a community like Hampton. So I highly recommend it. Go to join Hampton COVID-19. I think you're gonna like what's going on in there. This episode was created by Jackie and Alex and the team at Lower Street. It's my company. I got to give them a shout out. If you want a podcast for your company or yourself, just like money wise, then check out Lower Street.com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. Harry Morton I'm at podcast Harry on Twitter. Or you can just look us up lower Street. Thanks for listening.