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!