whose hearts are mountains

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want my future to look like, more specifically what I want my overall lifestyle to be like. I don’t want to wake up one day ten years later and realize I’ve wasted precious years of my life doing things that don’t bring me any ultimate satisfaction. Much of this thought has been brought on by thinking through my goals for the upcoming year. I bought a passion planner to use for 2018 and it includes a section where you brainstorm your high priority goals for the upcoming year, then break them down into achievable steps. It’s a fantastic way to not only create goals, but make sure you actually meet those goals. Anyways, doing that has made me really consider what I want to achieve in not only the next year, but in the next 5-10 years. Recent events with my husband’s work situation have also caused my previous expectations of the next several years of our lives to be completely flipped upside-down. This means that I’ve had to reconsider what type of career I want and what I hope to get out of that career.

To be honest, I’ve always been more focused on my lifestyle outside of my job than my actual job itself. This is part of the reason why FI/RE is so appealing to me: I can pursue my passions without having to worry about how to support myself. Lately this has been brought more clearly into focus by seeing people like Gwen from Fiery Millennials quit her job to pursue more freelance/flexible work. I’ve started considering doing the same thing; quitting a traditional job to pursue a few other part-time ventures. I have a few ideas but none of them have been proven to work, which is why I want to really focus on this blog in the upcoming year. This will allow me to build some connections and try to make a bit of money (not off this blog directly, but perhaps opportunities that come as a result of it). In any case I would love to document this process and that’s the best part about blogs. I also think that using the principles behind FI/RE to “retire” from a high-paying albeit unsatisfying job to a lower-paying, more fulfilling job is becoming more popular.

What I want my lifestyle to be like

My inspiration is largely drawn from my favorite bloggers – people who regularly get out and do activities that I dream of being able to do more often. This is very similar to my “why I want to retire early” post, but I would love to be able to spend my free time traveling, hiking, cycling, completing triathlons/road races, skiing, and various other outdoor pursuits (there are way too many to ever get close to mastering all of them!). Obviously the main problem with these pursuits is that you don’t make money by doing them, or if you do you get paid peanuts. I’ll go through a few of my favorite bloggers and why I love their lifestyle so much (although there is a fine line between drawing inspiration from someone and falling into the comparison trap, which is why I don’t always consume their content).

• Lady on a Rock
  • Christy is a school teacher living in California who has used her summers off to section hike the PCT as well as many other classic trails. She has incorporated her hiking experiences into teaching material for her students as well. She also has a family and I dream of being able to take my future family along adventures such as the John Muir Trail the way she has.
• Just a Colorado Gal
  • I will freely admit that reading about her adventures often causes me to cross the border from being inspired to being insanely jealous. Heather also has a main job that  is busy only part of the year – she works for her family’s landscaping business, which scales back every winter. She also does freelance writing for the Outdoor Industry, which doesn’t pay much but does have some fantastic perks. For example, she participated in the OmniTen games by Columbia (essentially an amazing free adventure vacation to showcase Columbia’s newest gear).
• la chanson de ma vie
  • Karen is a huge outdoor enthusiast, marathon and ultra-marathon runner. Interestingly enough she doesn’t have a standard job, however this allows her and her husband to participate in so many fantastic outdoor adventures that they would never have the time to do otherwise. Therefore I think she’s a perfect example of being able to lead a fulfilling life without traditional employment. She goes on lots of backpacking trips, has run multiple marathons and ultras, gardens in her backyard, volunteers at her local running club, and plays in the community orchestra.

The central theme here is obviously a love of outdoor activities. My dream is to be able to participate in these as much as possible. I imagine spending every morning with several hours of physical activity – running, weight lifting, cycling, swimming, etc. In addition, we would take multiple long weekends and perhaps a few week-long trips every year for longer adventure trips such as canoe-camping, backpacking, and cross-country skiing. I also definitely want to share much of my adventures on some form of social media – most likely blogging. I have benefitted so much from reading others’ blog posts that I would be remiss to not give back and inspire others.

Ideas for funding my lifestyle

The obvious answer is to be financially independent, and I am definitely working towards that ultimate goal. However, I don’t want to get caught up in wishing my life away and I don’t want to wait 10 years to live my dream lifestyle. I also want to maintain some form of paid work in my life, even if it’s part time and low paid, just to give myself an extra cushion.

• Reservist – I am seriously considering remaining in the reserves if I decide to leave the military before my 20 years are up. The benefits include the ability to purchase cheaper health insurance, retaining some military benefits, some extra pay, and a pension at 65 years. The cons to this would be the potential of deploying and the difficulty of maintaining a civilian job in conjunction with reservist duties. The scenario I’m imagining would involve leaving the military after 8-10 years of service, getting a full time civilian job for about 5 years, and then pursuing my own, more flexible work after that.
• Property Manager – I’ve been dreaming about becoming a landlord ever since reading Paula Pant’s blog. I’m sure she makes it seem much easier than it is, but I absolutely love researching and looking up potential properties as well as home improvements. One goal of mine is to own several properties to rent out, providing some semi-passive income.
• Freelance Writer – I’ll be honest, I haven’t taken any writing or English classes since high school. I am a voracious reader and I actually do enjoy writing, I just never pursued it professionally because I knew STEM careers paid more. I know a lot of bloggers use their portfolio to score freelance writing gigs and this would be a perfect flexible part-time engagement.
• Website Developer – I don’t know much beyond the very basics about programming but it’s become a hot field these days. In my extremely uninformed opinion I could see myself getting involved in this space.
• Certified Flight Instructor – Huge caveat to this is that I would have to heavily invest in some very expensive training to get myself to this point, and it would take a very long time to pay off from a financial standpoint. However, this would be an awesome part-time job and clearly I’d be doing it for fun as well as for profit.

These are just a few ideas I have and I’m sure my desires will change over time. I also do want to have a family at some point, which is part of why I want work that is part-time and flexible. I don’t want to become the family that is so busy they never spend quality time together. That entire topic is a post for another day, this one is already long enough!

The point of all this self-reflection is to form goals that I can begin working on now so that this can actually be my future someday. Therefore, I have goals to blog more regularly, interact with other bloggers, attend conferences such as Lolita, and participate in my community more. This will allow me to form contacts and relationships that can help make my dreams a reality. Feel free to follow along as I bumble through this crazy world and cross my goals off!

 

I went to a church service last weekend with my mother-in-law and the main topic of the sermon happened to be about money. And inevitably, this led to a discussion of tithing. Now I know plenty of people think that when they go to church it’s just going to be a boring lecture guilt-tripping anyone who doesn’t live a perfect Godly life (aka everyone). But there are a lot of excellent thought-provoking life lessons in the Bible that can apply to everyone whether or not you believe in God or Jesus.

It’s always awkward when pastors talk about giving money, and they always make multiple jokes about how awkward it is. For anyone who doesn’t know, one of the tenets of most Christian faiths is to give 10% of your income as a tithe. Like many official Christian beliefs, I imagine the number of Christians actually following that rule is relatively minimal. Most churches insinuate that you should give the full 10% to them, however I personally am of the opinion that as long as the money is going to a charitable cause, it shouldn’t matter. I was impressed that this particular pastor expressed that it he didn’t care whether people donated the tithe to his church or to another cause, he just emphasized that amazing things happen to generous people.

For non-Christians and skeptics, giving money away has been shown to make people happier than spending the money on themselves. Here’s an excellent TED talk that covers this topic better than I can. And it makes total sense – I’ve always felt that giving someone an awesome Christmas present and watching their excitement at opening it is much more satisfying than receiving a similar present myself.

I have to admit that we are not as good at giving money away as we should be. I think the problem is twofold: First of all, it’s unfortunately true that the more money you have the harder it is to give it up. Second, it can often feel like donated money falls into an abyss with little feedback on how helpful it’s been. As a pursuer of FI/RE, I feel that every little extra bit helps in pursuing my goals and dreams. I freely admit that this is absolutely a selfish thought because obviously millions of other people in the world are struggling to simply survive, let alone accumulate enough money to retire early. My only defense is that most people I know are using their extra money to buy fancy houses, new cars, and nice clothes and aren’t donating their excess either.

As to my second point, I do think that  some charities are getting better at providing feedback to their donors and writing thank-you letters, providing pictures, etc. However these efforts also take extra time and money that could be spent on the actual cause so it’s a bit of a catch-22. Many charities do allow donors to sponsor a particular individual which allows you to see the direct benefits they receive from a donation. One of the guests on the FIRE Drill podcast (Justin from Saving Sherpa) discussed how he sponsors a child through Ciudad de Angeles, and he actually visits her in person. I can imagine how much happier seeing the direct benefits of your donated money make you feel versus just sending money to an organization online.

I’d like to get better about donating our money and time this year. I think the best way to do it would be to give up something I would normally buy myself and donate that money instead. That way I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing my savings, but I can still give back.

This time of year is always a bit rough in terms of motivation in the Pacific Northwest. Short days and dreary weather make spending all day on the couch sound like a worthy life goal. I still so much stuff I want to achieve, dangit, and I do my best to fight through the apathy of winter.

One of the best ways to provide incentives to get through some of the grind of January/February is providing rewards for yourself. Generally my favorite treats come in edible forms, but since I’m limiting my calories I’m actively avoiding junk food and alcohol. Other great forms of treating yourself often involve spending a lot of money, which is also something that does not fit into my Ultimate Life Plan for 2018. Therefore I’ve devised a list of “healthy” indulgences. At the very least, the only regret I could possible have for these is wasted time, not extra pounds or a lighter wallet.

• Watching childhood movies/tv shows
  • There are a lot of these available on Youtube and a few on Netflix as well. Some of my favorites are Disney Channel classics like Lizzie Maguire and Even Stevens.
• Bath Bombs/Bubble Baths
  • I have bought Lush products before which are $$$$, but you can also make these yourself or get cheaper versions on Amazon. I would like to try my hand one of these days at making a bath bomb.
• Reading childhood books
  • Specifically, my favorite fantasy/sci fi books as a kid. And honestly, even reading newer YA fiction is one of my guilty pleasures. Diana Wynne Jones was one of my favorite authors when I was younger and I still enjoy her writing today; she has just the right mix of whimsy and profoundness in her fantasy stories.
• Video Games
  • The only video game I ever really got into was Final Fantasy X as a kid. We still have our old PS2 and I will occasionally play it as another guilty pleasure.

I’m working on creating a longer list of ways to treat myself without consuming excess calories or spending a ridiculous amount of money. When I’m stressed or bored, I need to have options so I don’t resort to unhealthy habits. None of these activities is particularly productive, but sometimes it’s nice to take a break and do something just because it’s plain fun.