RichardContents
I’ve got a guilty secret to share with you.
The longest I’ve ever had a job was two years. And even that was tough going.
The reason? The honest answer is I get bored very easily.
Not just a little. Enough to make me want to drop out and go travelling for a year just to recover.
The idea of sitting in an office cubicle, doing work just because I’ve been told to, rather than because it really matters, fills me with dread.
The lack of free time when working full time depresses me no end.
Targets. Appraisals. Office politics.
The same old drudgery, day after day.
Over the years I’ve met people who have worked for the same company, often in the same position, for their entire career. This wasn’t what we dreamt about as kids!
I wanted to visit the rainforest, to watch wildlife in the raw, to swim in the Mediterranean. Adult life can be so boring in comparison.
Which is why I never seem to last very long in a job.
Soon enough I’m either taking a “mini retirement” or looking for a new job.
Over the years I’ve taken up to 8 months off between “jobs” to enjoy myself.
And those pockets of freedom have been the best periods of my life. Truly.
That’s all well and good, but traditional run-of-the-mill personal finance advice doesn’t apply to people like me. Maybe people like you too.
Pretty much all the personal finance tips you’ll stumble upon relate to working a steady job, making the most of the benefits they offer, and slowly, subtly building wealth by investing in pensions, property and the stock market.
Slow and steady wins the race.
At least for me I’m not sure that’s a realistic expectation.
So what is the alternative?
How can we marry smart financial habits with a less traditional lifestyle or career?
The Financial Risk of Being a Free Spirit
When I was in Costa Rica I met an incredibly chilled out American who had slowly worked his way down to Central America on a budget. He had set up a small market stall selling cool handmade jewellery to tourists. He spent his days sat in the sun by his stall with his feet up.
He wasn’t rolling in money, but he made enough to pay his rent and keep food on the table.
All while living next to the rainforest and enjoying the most relaxed, stress-free existence possible.
Jealous?
But wait. If there’s one lesson that all personal finance bloggers can agree on it’s that we shouldn’t give up what we really want for what we want right now. Put another way, our friend in Costa Rica may be living a lifestyle that many people might covet, but he was hardly planning for the future.
What happens if he suddenly needs to fly back home to see a sick relative?
Or what if he doesn’t sell as much jewellery as he expected one month and can’t pay his rent?
Or what about when he gets older and needs expensive medical care?
Or, or, or.
The point is that the free spirits among us need to find ways to navigate two different paths at the same time; we need to find ways to afford ourselves the short-term freedom we crave to live life to the full. But we can’t do so at the expense of longer-term financial freedom.
We need to be smarter, work harder and live two lives at the same time. But how?
Start a Side Hustle
A crucial factor that has afforded me some freedom from “real” work has been my obsession with side hustles.
Let me tell you a true story here. Some years ago I visited Cuba for a two week vacation, having carefully chosen the resort for it’s wifi reliability. At the time I was running a music blog, and wanted to be able to check on it regularly.
Except when we turned up the Internet was down, and remained so for our entire stay. I couldn’t get online at all.
Eventually, out of frustration, I walked along the beach to another resort and begged them to let me use their internet cafe. They agreed. I logged in expecting the worst.
That’s when I found that even without Internet access I’d earned more from my blog than the vacation had cost. I actually took two weeks in Cuba and came back with more money in my account than when I left!
That was the experience that really demonstrated the importance of having a side hustle – a source of income separate to a more traditional job.
Not only can a side hustle help to increase your income when you are working but it can also help to bring in money when you’re off exploring the world.
So start a blog. Write a Kindle ebook. Design some t-shirts. Build an e-commerce store. And buy yourself some passive income to help weather any storms.
Save For Your Mini Retirement
For years I fought my personality, always assuming that the “next” job would be the one I’d stick with over the long term.
Eventually I had to accept the truth; I wasn’t cut out for this idea of full-time employment.
As a result I started to modify how I managed my money.
For sure, I continued to be smart about my disposable income, saving and investing as much as I could. But into the mix I also introduced saving for the inevitable – my next mini retirement.
Reading travel books and blogs I was able to start estimating costs of my chosen destination. I started to carefully put money aside for this very purpose. No credit was relied on.
The thing is to start saving early and start saving hard, because you never know when it’ll be time to get back on the road again.
Once you’ve got a cushion saved then stick out your job for as long as you can stomach, putting your disposable income into pensions, property or the stock market to build a stronger financial future no matter what happens while you’re away.
Work Like a Madman at Your Job
If you’re going to slave away at a job then try to make it count. Accept over-time when it’s available. Try to make a game of not using your vacation days. Look for promotions and pay raises.
I did this at one job and managed to save so much holiday pay that I was essentially still employed for the next four weeks when I left the country. That extra pay made all the difference to my next adventure.
Live a Minimalist Lifestyle
If you love to take time off work to travel or follow other passions then consumerism can become your kryptonite. Try to avoid the desire to spend on anything unnecessary and instead save as much as you can.
Minimalism was also crucial to our four month trip to France, as it allowed us to put all our worldly belongings into a small self-storage unit before heading off abroad. In that way we didn’t need to pay rent or mortgage while we were away, without which our French adventure would likely have been much shorter.
Become a Digital Nomad
A “digital nomad” is someone who earns a living while on the road. There are high-level professionals doing this – designers, programmers and more. But there are also normal folks like you and me, doing a bit of freelance writing or social media management.
In many ways becoming a digital nomad is rather like starting a side hustle, with the key difference being that many of these “jobs” require regular work. This is in contrast to a blog or affiliate website that can earn passive residual income even when you’re not at your computer.
All the same, would you rather write articles at a coffee shop in Bali or work at your soul-sucking job for the foreseeable future? I know which I’d choose!
Geo-Arbitrage
Products and services vary in price by where you’re located. For example, renting an apartment in Chiang Mai in Thailand is much cheaper than a similar property in Europe.
Hiring a freelance writer or a virtual assistant from the Philippines can be much cheaper than hiring someone in the USA.
This means that there are many opportunities to make your money go further when you’re ready to take advantage of geo-arbitrage.
Balance Conservatism With Adventure
There are many buzzwords for long term or regular travel and adventure. Such people are often referred to as digital nomads, or location independent individuals, or permanent travellers (PT).
We’re sold the dream of long-term, or even permanent, travel to exotic locations while either living on savings or working on the road. And it’s possible; more and more people are doing this all the time.
On the other hand we have the hardcore financial independence/retire early (FIRE) community telling us to keep working at our jobs, carefully investing our money each month so that we can retire early and live the life we’ve always wanted.
For me, with an equally powerful passion for both these lifestyles, it’s about trying to balance the two.
Here’s what that looks like for me…
Living for the Now
Be willing to take time off work to travel and follow your passions. Expect this to happen and use the tips above to prepare for it.
For people like me (and you?) living a life of boring gray frustration just isn’t a life worth living.
So work hard. Save money. Start a business you can do on the road. And be prepared to create a lifestyle that will be everything you’ve ever dreamt of.
Living for the Future
Just because you’re set on living for the moment doesn’t mean you should ignore the future. Here you need to be rather more conservative. Put money into savings and investments. Start a pension. Perhaps even buy a house.
Assume that – sooner or later – you’ll settle down, either through illness, having children, old age or just a change of scenery. It might seem boring now – but it could be the safety net you need in the future.
In order to achieve both these things you’ll need to create a “hybrid lifestyle” where your money, time and effort is evenly split between these two goals.
Get the balance wrong and you could be in for some difficult financial times ahead. But get it right and you’ll achieve something many people dream of but very few people really take action on.
It Takes a Frustrating Amount of Time
Before I conclude this article I want to issue you a stark warning, from someone that has been actively living this hybrid lifestyle for some years: it can take a frustratingly long period of time to really get going.
There are so many potential roadblocks on the way to creating your perfect lifestyle.
Despite all the articles to the contrary, it can take time to build up an online income stream. Your first blog may fail. The ebook you spend months writing may not sell a single copy. Your income may not be high enough yet to pay for this hybrid lifestyle. You may struggle to afford both exciting travel and a boring pension payment.
This is normal – at least early on.
Be prepared for that. Stick with it, and refuse to give up.
Remember that you’re essentially trying to live two lives at the same time – and that takes real dedication and passion.
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