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A Realistic Look at Ideal Days in Our Future Financially Independent Life

April 6, 2014 by Brad 20 Comments  Richmond Savers has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Richmond Savers and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Disclosures.

We talk a lot here at Richmond Savers about saving money and why it is so important in order to make your life easier and more financially stable. Money is a tool that you can use to give yourself power over your life that most people living paycheck-to-paycheck will never have.

Life is simply much easier when you save money.

Our eventual goal is to attain complete Financial Independence and to be able to direct our time as we see fit.  This most likely will mean ‘early retirement’ in the traditional sense, where neither Laura nor I will be forced to go to a job just to earn a paycheck.

That doesn’t mean that we’ll lead completely unproductive lives or just sit around drinking beer and watching TV all day (though that is the plan for March Madness every year with some extra buffalo wing gluttony thrown in there!).  It will just allow us to use our most precious resource – our limited time on this planet – in ways that we find enjoyable and worthwhile.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what my perfect life would resemble if I had the opportunity to retire today.  It’s easy to picture us traveling the world for years, or living on the beach in Hawaii, but realistically, based on the fact that we have two young daughters who will attend public schools for the next 16 years, what would I do with my current life if I no longer had to go to work every day?

To Work or Not to Work:

Many people derive much of their self-worth from their jobs.  Maybe they like their important job title or the power that goes along with the job.  Maybe they just genuinely enjoy the work that they do and find the regular routine stimulating.

I am not one of those people.

It’s easy to complain about your job, no matter what you do for a living.  Based on how fortunate I am, it would be pathetic for me to complain about my job and I won’t do that.  It’s a stable job with a strong company, I work 10 minutes from my house and I rarely, if ever, have to work overtime.  I like the people I work with, and I’m paid a salary that enables us to live a comfortable life while still saving money.  If I’m completely honest with myself, nobody could ever complain about a job like that.

That all said, I could not imagine myself continuing to work even one day after I achieve Financial Independence.

I just don’t derive enough satisfaction from the actual work to continue doing it any longer than absolutely necessary.

I never realized until I started offering my free travel rewards coaching program just how much I truly enjoy helping people and what a sense of accomplishment I gain from it!  It’s an amazing thing to make a real difference in someone’s life just by passing on some of my own knowledge.  People who expected to spend thousands of dollars on trips now have that money in their bank accounts because of one phone call or email with me.  That’s incredible enough, but the fact that I can offer the service for free and still earn some income from credit card affiliate commissions is remarkable.

I clearly would continue this program long after I was financial capable of “retiring” because I genuinely enjoy it and get immense satisfaction from helping people across the country realize their travel goals.

Day-to-Day Life:

It just isn’t realistic to imagine our family could travel the entire year or that we’d all of a sudden live lives of non-stop excitement in our early-retirement years.  Education is extremely important to us and so is stability for our kids.  Neither of us could imagine moving them around to different locations and disrupting their lives and educations on a constant basis.  I’m sure some people could easily make this work, but we know it wouldn’t work for our family.

So that leaves us here in the Richmond suburbs during the school year.  I imagine with our travel rewards skills that we’d be able to travel the entire summer each year for a very limited out-of-pocket cost.  So we’d try to pack as much into those two months as we possibly could and that would be something all four of us would look forward to every year.

During the year we’d still have the realities of getting the kids up in the morning and getting them off to school.  And I know it would be amazing to be there every day at 3pm when they get off the bus; I took a half-day of vacation a few weeks ago and the look of joy on my daughter’s face when I was there at the bus stop could really have melted my heart!

It would be great to spend more time with the girls each day, as instead of getting home at nearly 5:30 pm I’d be there the second they got off the bus.  So that’s at least 10 extra daylight hours we could spend outside running around and playing fun games.  I feel like I miss out on a lot of their lives being at work all day, so it’s hard to overstate how much this would mean to me.

Laura and I would still have from 8am to 3pm every weekday to try to live our ‘ideal lives’; that’s an amazing 35 hours each week or 1,800 hours each year (!!) that would be entirely free to spend as we see fit.  We enjoy:

  • Taking walks:  I know this sounds like an activity for old people, but we always enjoyed just strolling through random neighborhoods, talking about the houses and just about life in general.  This is a great way to spend time together and to be outside and somewhat active.
  • RichmondSavers.com:  I’d plan to devote some significant time to this website; I’ve been terrible with writing and publishing posts lately, and my ‘to do list’ of projects on the site just keeps growing.  I genuinely enjoy working on the site and helping people with travel rewards and the satisfaction I gain more than offsets the hours spent “working.”
  • Exercising:  Laura and I both express a desire to exercise, but unfortunately life seems to keep getting in the way.  One of the best experiences I’ve had was joining an outdoor exercise program here in Richmond called X-Team Fitness; I would do that every single day of my life if I had the time.
  • Volunteering:  Laura has always wanted to volunteer in a hospital and I’d enjoying volunteering in a school, or starting up some type of financial literacy program to help middle-class families.
  • Cooking:  Laura truly loves to cook and I truly love to eat!!  So her ideal retirement would include many new recipes each week, in addition to trying out new wines and beers to go along with the meals.
  • Watching movies:  Okay, this might not be on most people’s “ideal life” list, but because of our hectic lives we have officially watched zero movies in the past 2 years.  We have this long list that we’d like to eventually see.
  • Exploring:  Richmond and the surrounding area have a lot of history and things to see, and it would be amazing to really explore the area.
  • Learning new things:  I know it is a cliché, but I’ve always wanted to learn a second language and I think it would be a great challenge.  But learning certainly doesn’t have to start or end there.
  • Quiet:  We are both introverts who really thrive on quiet, and as you can imagine in a household with two young kids there isn’t much of it to go around.  It would be nice to just sit and read a book or the New York Times each day in the hammock (or the hot tub that we might uncharacteristically splurge for…)

What does your ideal life look like?  I hope you’ll share in the comments below…

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Comments

  1. Amanda says

    April 6, 2014 at 2:49 pm

    I love my job but it requires too many hours for me to continue working there if I was financially independent. Maybe in a different position or on a part time basis? I’d love to spend more time cooking, gardening, reading, and writing. 🙂

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 6, 2014 at 10:17 pm

      Thanks for the comment Amanda!! That’s great that you love your job, but also nice that you have so many interests outside of work. A part time basis sounds like a great choice when you become financially independent 🙂

      Reply
  2. Dude says

    April 7, 2014 at 9:12 am

    My ideal life is when I don’t have to worry about my finances running out anymore. It’s me doing this I like, whenever I want to. That’s my ideal life.

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 8, 2014 at 8:39 pm

      Doing things you like and not having to worry about money sounds like a great ‘ideal life.’ Here’s hoping you get there…

      Reply
  3. Andrew@LivingRichCheaply says

    April 7, 2014 at 10:34 am

    I with you Brad…haven’t watched a movie for 9 months…my son is 9 months…coincidence? haha. My wife and I also like taking walk…it’s a great time to talk, get in some exercise and fresh air. I’d also like a job where I’m helping people…maybe helping others with financial issues. I think my ideal life sounds pretty similar to yours. My wife would probably enjoy volunteering with little kids, she loves them.

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 8, 2014 at 8:41 pm

      Crazy how life changes, right?? Since my 2 year old was born we haven’t done much of anything; it’s amazing how difficult life is with two of these little characters 🙂

      Our ideal lives do sound quite similar! Just find enjoyable things to do and not stress about life — that would be wonderful

      Reply
  4. Syed says

    April 7, 2014 at 11:14 am

    Thoroughly enjoyed reading this post because it’s something that I have thought about myself a lot. You’re right we all have a limited amount of hours on this earth so we should put some thought in how to spend them. I imagine the day of having no student loans or debt of any kind and a good amount of money in the bank. Our list is actually quite similar to yours as we just enjoy things like taking walks or watching movies.

    Something a little different I would devote a lot of time to is martial arts. I’ve always been a martial arts junkie and it would be great to be able to commit to that full time. It’s an awesome way to stay in great shape and it’s so much fun. I’ve been able to do it in the past but something has come up where I had to step away, be it a family or work issue. I would hope to get good enough to teach and spend the rest of my days doing that. Being able to do that and spend time with my family is all I would need.

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 8, 2014 at 8:42 pm

      Thanks Syed — I’m glad you enjoyed it! Sometimes it is the little things like taking walks or watching movies or just talking about life that are the most enjoyable…

      What a cool idea mastering martial arts is! I like that a lot

      Reply
  5. Pat says

    April 7, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    I am elderly and am financially comfortable. Unfortunately, by the time you are able to retire and are free from financial worries, there are usually other problems that take you away from what you dreamed life would hold for you….caring for aged parents, death of your spouse, your own infirmities, etc. Too bad we can’t retire young enough to enjoy the life we wish we had.

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 8, 2014 at 8:45 pm

      Hi Pat,
      Thank you for the comment — I appreciate your time.
      I agree that for most people it is the case that by the time they retire their best years are behind them and you can’t “enjoy the life we wish we had.” That’s why I feel so strongly about living below our means and saving as much money as possible in order to retire as young as possible. Simply put, “stuff” means nothing to me. People can take their fancy cars, houses, gadgets and whatever else they spend money on and I’ll take my retirement at 40 or at the latest 45! The only thing that matters is time, and you can’t get it back…

      Reply
  6. Done by Forty says

    April 8, 2014 at 1:33 am

    Great stuff, Brad, and we both must have been thinking about our early retirements recently. Great minds, right?

    I think your early retirement and ours might be pretty similar, especially after we have kids of our own. It’s tempting to think we’ll do some slow travel with the entire family abroad, but the reality of life as a parent and the importance of education might change that all pretty quickly.

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 8, 2014 at 8:47 pm

      It is so funny that our posts went up on the same day about the same topic! Great minds indeed 🙂

      Yeah, life certainly changes when you have kids, so the concept of an ‘ideal life’ changes a bit too. They are wonderful and I couldn’t imagine not having them, but I also couldn’t imagine a year of slow travel with them. Honestly, maybe it is just a limitation in my own mind since I know some people do this and find it the most rewarding experience of their lives. I just suspect it would not work for our family

      Reply
  7. Cory says

    April 8, 2014 at 7:33 pm

    I have some experience in a couple of your areas, so I figured I would send a couple ideas your way. First off, I speak Spanish fluently, have lived abroad, and have traveled in Europe a couple of times for a total of 8 weeks.

    Say you want to learn Spanish. Take a high-intensity Spanish course (2 hours plus for 4-5 days per week) just before your summer vacation. Then “move” to, say, Madrid. Madrid is centrally located for all of Spain, with lots of cool day trips within an hour, and 5+ nice cities within 5 or 6 hours. Actually “living” in a place will keep you from getting burned out and over exhausted. On both of my Europe trips, I went from one city to the next and “rested” on the trains/buses – not a good idea. I was 24 and 26 years old on each trip, in very good physical shape, and it was still insanely tiring. On the second trip, I stayed in one small city in Switzerland for about 4 days with not many sites to see, and it was probably my favorite part of either trip. I took part in a local cultural event and actually felt like I was a member of the town for a few days. It was also relaxing.

    A good way to cut costs for an extended trip is through a home renting program. There are lots of websites where you can rent somebody’s home in large cities all over the world. This is usually pretty cheap. Meanwhile, you can rent out your home in Richmond to offset some of the travel costs. If you rent someone’s house in Madrid for a month, you could use hotel points for weekend/multiple day trips to Barcelona, San Sebastian, Seville, etc. The other benefit of having a “home away from home” is that you can eat for less money. I stayed in hostels, which have kitchens, but they are communal kitchens and just not very fun to use, so I ate fast food almost all the time. No dollar menu in Europe – even ketchup packets cost 10 cents. So that added up fast. Maybe find a friendly neighbor and swap dinner nights. One night you make them a classic, authentic American meal, the next they make you an authentic local dinner. I ate with locals every day I lived in Mexico. I absolutely loved the food and it was a real chance to practice the language.

    Force yourself to live like a local. This will save you money and help you learn the language. Find local festivals where you can interact with people and experience their culture. It will be the most rewarding part of travel and I’m sure it will make memories for your kids that you couldn’t give them by bouncing around from city to city just doing the sight seeing thing (which is still very fun).

    The next year, do Paris. Then Frankfurt. Then Rome. Then Athens. Then China (probably a bit harder, but you get the idea). You’d be surprised at how well you get to know a place, people, culture, and language in just a few months or even weeks when you fully drown yourself in it. The key is you have to force yourself to interact with others in their language.

    Reply
  8. Tom says

    April 9, 2014 at 10:36 am

    Hi Brad,
    If I were to put in words how I feel about work, it would have been exactly how you stated it above.
    I’ve achieved my ideal life when the day of the week doesn’t matter anymore. Great website!

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 10, 2014 at 8:03 pm

      Thanks Tom — I’m glad you enjoyed the article and the site, I really appreciate it. It’s nice to hear someone with the same thoughts about their job; it’s easy in the day-to-day grind to complain about work like everyone does, but when I step back and realize how fortunate I am, it puts things in perspective. That said, now that I’ve found something where I feel like I’m making a difference in people’s lives, it is so wonderful and makes me realize what I’ve been missing this past decade.

      I like that concept where ‘the day of the week doesn’t matter anymore’!

      Thanks again for commenting and I hope you stick around…

      Reply
  9. Andy Bland says

    April 12, 2014 at 2:55 am

    I just started adopting a minimalist lifestyle. It’s not easy but it helps me save a lot of money.
    Andy Bland recently posted…Auto ResponderMy Profile

    Reply
    • Brad says

      April 14, 2014 at 8:03 pm

      I understand what you’re saying Andy — it definitely isn’t the conventional route, but you’ll come out way ahead, I guarantee it!

      Reply
  10. Jenny says

    May 26, 2014 at 9:57 pm

    Hey Brad, just catching up on the blog! As I read through your list of your ideal free time activities, I realized that I’m basically living the life of a child-free retiree right now, and that I should appreciate it more and take advantage of it! I cook, volunteer, take Spanish classes, go to the gym (on occasion), watch shows…hopefully I’ll be fortunate enough to do these things later in life when my free time isn’t quite as plentiful. Thanks for putting that in perspective for me!

    Reply
    • Brad says

      June 2, 2014 at 9:13 am

      Nice! 🙂 Definitely take advantage of it while you can, because as you’ve seen from our lives, it gets unbelievably hectic once these kiddos come into the picture. You are in such a fortunate position to take advantage of the free time to do the things that you really want to do, so savor every minute of it!

      Reply
  11. Muhammad Usman Hassan says

    September 28, 2014 at 3:31 am

    I don’t feel good about my job too, i am tired of it working 8 hours a day with no relaxation, if i had my sort of part time business, i could spend my life in gardening, cooking and fishing :p

    Reply

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