Meet Douglas

Douglas Tsoi is the founder of School of Financial Freedom. This is his short financial freedom story: After college, he had careers as an intellectual property lawyer, Quaker school teacher, government sustainability officer, and nonprofit training manager, making an average of $36,000 a year. During all that time, he lived on $20,000 a year for 20 years and invested the rest. At age 42, he “retired.” You can read a longer version of his story in this blog post.

After FI, Douglas spends most of his time playing soccer, writing, traveling, and hanging with his dog Wu Wei. He also started a Portland Underground Grad School, a place for affordable lifelong community and education. He became a Franciscan Spiritual Director, trained as a hospital chaplain, and does financial-spiritual coaching. He created The Appreciation Effect, the Gratitude Dojo, and a reparative justice fund. His principle values are voluntary simplicity, integrity, gratitude, lifelong learning, and community.

Podcast guest profile

Noteworthy Podcast Episodes Douglas Has Been A Guest On

Ideas For Episode Titles / Main Focus

  • What Happens After Crossing Over? The Five Stages of Financial Independence

  • The Emotional Consequences of Capitalism: Earning our Worth

  • FIRE and the Spiritual Life: Living with Voluntary Simplicity, Integrity, and Devotion

  • FIRE and Climate Grief: What’s our Personal Responsibility?

  • Understanding our Not-Enoughness: Jung and the Hero’s Journey to Wholeness

Questions Douglas Is Always Ready To Answer

  • What do we get wrong about money?

  • Why doesn’t FIRE make me happy?

  • What is the FIRE movement?

  • What if you don't have a high income? Is FIRE possible?

  • What is FU money and why do you need it?

  • How do you decrease expenses without it feeling like deprivation?

  • What is the 4% rule and how much money do you need to retire?

  • Why should I care about financial independence if I have no intention of retiring early?

Desired CTA

Send Audience To:

Guest Tags

  • Capitalism

  • Financial Freedom

  • Financial Independence

  • Gratitude and Grief

  • Happiness

  • Intergrity

  • Investing

  • Money

  • Personal Finances

  • Spirituality

  • Voluntary Simplicity

read and listen in

You can read the SOFF newsletter Money and Money on Substack. Additionally, you can listen to the SOFF podcast, which features past students explaining their favorite lesson and what it’s meant to them years after the course. There you’ll get a good taste of what you’ll learn in FF1 and the fellow students you’ll meet in the course.