Last week I wrote about my skip a level meeting where I was told I was going to be recommended for the next geoscience leadership position. It was exciting news and I am happy to be recognized for that recommendation, but I’m not the only one in the house with upcoming career decisions. Last Fall Mrs. SSC saw a job posting at a large University that, on paper, looks like it would be a great fit for her and our lifestyle. She didn’t think that she would be a strong candidate, but like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play, so she turned in her application. Months go by, and she gets a call that she has made the short list of applicants! Currently, she passed that round of interviews and has moved on as one of the finalists! Congrats to Mrs. SSC!!
The only real issue is that this new career move would drastically alter our current Canyon Lake plan, as the position is in a different state. Yep, if everything turns out roses and rainbows, such as Mrs. SSC gets an offer, likes the University, and more importantly the job and time requirements of the position, we could potentially be relocating as early as this Fall. Yipe! There are still a lot of things to consider if everything aligns in that way, and here’s what we think could be the good and bad of that position.
Yesterday, I found out that I am being recommended for the next Geoscience leadership position that becomes available. My reaction was pretty mixed, sort of like a dog that chases cars, and then finally catches one. “Hooray! Wait… Now what do I do with this?” Not that I’ve been chasing a management spot because I’ve told my managers I wanted to stay technical rather than go into a leadership position. I put the caveat that if it was a small team lead type of position, sure, but having 8+ direct reports sounds pretty horrid. I’m fine with staying on the technical side, but I have always thought that being a team lead could be fun. Like Mrs. SSC and I discussed, “Well, now that I’m in the twilight of my career, if I become team lead and it sucks ass, I only have a couple of years to deal with it, lol.”
For 5 months this year, I’ve been training for a single race, the Kemah Olympic Triathlon, and this past weekend I completed it! Woohoo! It was scheduled to be run in April, however, due to some poor planning and lack of knowledge of TX DOT’s paving schedule, it was rescheduled only 2 weeks before the event. Yes, 2 weeks before the race, they moved the date 6 months later. I had been training for it for about 2.5 months at that point, and I was pretty frustrated to say the least. I looked for a similar race nearby so my training wouldn’t go to waste and I was able to sign up for the Texasman Olympic Triathlon just north of Dallas. While I was able to complete both races, they both had unexpected issues pop up that I had to work around. It reminded me that whether you’re planning for a race, for FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early), FFLC (Fully Funded Lifestyle Change), or anything else solid preparation is good, but being able to deal with adversity is key!
We’re almost a year away from starting our FFLC journey and we feel pretty solid with all of our planning. Since we don’t know for sure how that planning aligns with reality, we are going to spend 2018 test driving our FFLC budget and see if we hit any unexpected bumps in the road, like I have in my races. Like race prep, training is essential to make sure you’re ready, but the mental aspect accounts for a lot as well.
I used to think that One More Year syndrome was due to people not really wanting to retire or not having anything to retire to. Lately, I totally understand why people would get caught in the One More Year cycle. It’s not about having enough money, it’s more about the psychological traps that come along with leaving a comfortable work environment and lifestyle, to venture into the unknown. A situation that’s new, possibly uncomfortable, possibly more stressful, and definitely more challenging than the known present situation. It makes it hard to envision the potentially stressful or uncomfortable retirement scenario as a “good” scenario. Especially when you’re like me and you really like your job and corporation (minus the rare bizarro meeting).
“Give me one good reason why I should never make a change?”
George Ezra
Well, I have lots of reasons why I should make changes, but it’s the big 3 that I keep reminding myself about and that’s the wife and kids.
There are a lot of things I can focus on that could go wrong with our plan and I have. Working on solutions and getting comfortable with the level of risk associated with those uncertainties is what I have to come to accept. I think Abe Lincoln said it better than I can.
“Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.”
I knew things were off the rails when Mrs. SSC said, “I wouldn’t say we’re back to square one, but…” Yep, we’ve been having lots of “those types” of discussions. I think it’s a confluence of a few things really.
The stark reality that when we start building this house, our Lifestyle Change plan is set in motion. Eeeepp!!! That adds a WHOLE lot of gravity to the situation.
What the F are going to do about healthcare and how much is it going to cost us? Depending on the yet unknown cost, we could be way under on our FI number, and need to juggle stuff, find work with insurance, or a side gig that could cover that unexpected cost over what we’re planning for now.
We both turn 40 this year, yipe!! The weight of that milestone (mid-life crises anyone) along with beginning the last leg of our FFLC (Fully Funded Lifestyle Change) journey has us asking a lot of questions. What will our ikigai be in “retirement”? We don’t want to “retire” just to wither away and die early. Do we want to be snowbirds and go live in New England or some other allegedly cooler destination over the hot summer? How does our budget work for that? Do we want to take a “gap year” between leaving the workforce and entering our Lifestyle Change/Early Retirement? Hahaha, a gap year before retirement – what a hilarious thought!
What do we want out of life? See point 3 for why we’re asking ourselves this question a lot more often than we used to. Will we be satisfied with living in Canyon Lake, or anywhere for that matter. In researching for the ikigai post, I discovered that people that had an ikigai (reason to live something driving them to get up every morning, but not necessarily a job) outlived those that didn’t. So, what in our life are we passionate about that will give us that satisfaction. After a summer of being a full time stay at home mom, I think Mrs. SSC is ready to deem it “really hard, and not quite as rewarding as you may think.” I haven’t gotten that opportunity yet, but it is my fear that my current job is WAY easier than becoming the “default parent” once I leave the corporate world.
Those are all the things that have been on our mind lately, and here’s what we’ve discovered.
A while back I got an email request to do an interview with the guys over at ChooseFI and thanks again to reader Isaac and others who recommended us for an interview. It was really fun to do and was released on their podcast this morning!
In the interview I discuss a lot of our backstory, more so than we’ve gone into on the blog, and how Mrs. SSC is the big driver for our Fully Funded Lifestyle Change (FFLC). You can learn my name (gasp!), even more details about how we got on track for FFLC, find out more about the lure of “the spreadsheet that drives it all” and even more about how dense I was with realizing that “retiring early” was a real concept that could happen without making ridiculous sacrifices. Seriously, it only took me 6 years to believe it could happen. Bonus points to try and see how many times Mrs. SSC come out as the hero in our story. Hint: It’s a lot…
This past month has been a whirlwind in regards to our Lifestyle Change and life in general. It’s literally only been about a month or so since Prof. SSC proposed her idea of our revised Hill Country Lifestyle Change to me. Since then we’ve taken a couple of different weekend trips looking at property. We’ve scoured Zillow and google maps street view (if street views actually exist…) and even more so, we’ve begun looking at house plans. Great googly moogly it’s been busy! Who would’ve thought retirement life planning would be so hectic?
Couldn’t be said better.
During that time though, we’ve figured out what we find important in our property and it’s not what you’d think. Even though we’re looking around lakes, we don’t necessarily find a lake view as important as we thought. We found that we would take more seclusion over a lake view. Yep, seclusion and that feeling of our own space is way more important to us than being right on the water with a killer view. That’s what led us to decide on the lot we think will be a perfect fit for us. It’s almost 3 acres, heavily treed with mature oaks, and we can put a house on it and have it surrounded by big trees. As of last weekend, we’re under contract on it with a closing date early next month. Now the real fun begins!
That’s right, we are looking forward to achieving FFLC! “What is this FFLC?” you ask. Well – I’ll tell you! It stands for Fully-Funded Lifestyle Change! “Uh, huh….” you’re probably saying to yourself. “So how is that different than ER or even FIRE?” you ask. The differences are subtle I suppose, but they’ve come from some realizations we’ve had over the last couple months, as Mrs. SSC and I have been seriously investigating places to live, things to do, and the underlying reasons why we want to quit our current lifestyle.
Here’s what we realized:
We don’t want to drop out of the workforce totally, but rather find something we can do that we are passionate about — regardless of the pay
We want more time to spend with family. We don’t want to fit in family around our jobs, but have our jobs fit in with our family life.
Full retirement wouldn’t be fulfilling to either of us, but volunteer work, teaching, mentoring… that is what we dream of
All of this led us to realize that we don’t want to retire– we want a Fully Funded Lifestyle Change!
No Free Time
In short, our current lifestyle sucks in regards to family time and free time. It’s great in that it allows us to save for the upcoming FFLC, however, there is SO much more we would both rather be doing with our lives than grinding away, day in – day out, for a corporation that will not notice one bit when we leave. Having 11-12 hour days from leaving the house until getting home 5 days a week just isn’t what I bargained for, or envisioned as “success!”.
The Talking Head’s song Once in a Lifetime really sums it up for us: And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, And you may ask yourself Well… How did I get here?
If you’re not familiar with the song (I don’t know how you couldn’t be) check it out on youtube here – you’re welcome!
We are hoping we will have a view like this from our porch!
To us, the song represents what your dreams and vision of success were when you were younger, compared to the reality of the sacrifices you make to have them be what they actually are today. As music critic Steve Huey better describes it, the main theme is “the drudgery of living life according to social expectations, and pursuing commonly accepted trophies (a large automobile, beautiful house, beautiful wife).” a Although the singer has these trophies, he begins to question whether they are real and how he got them. This leads him to question further the reality of life itself.b
This is Success?
This is exactly how Mrs. SSC and I came to investigate early retirement, pre-tirement, FIRE, and all the trappings associated with pulling the ripcord on what is a fairly “successful” life. Sure, it’s nice and comfortable and we’re the “model of success” but to whom? It sure as hell doesn’t feel like that to us. To us, it feels like we’re just grinding it out for the man until we can hit that retirement point. We end up so tired from the long days, that it makes it hard to have energy to put towards the kids. The weekends arrive, and we are catching up on all the errands that need to get done, find something fun to do with the kids, and restock the pantry for the next week. Next thing you know, it’s time to crawl in bed Sunday night, set the alarm, and repeat… endlessly… We don’t want this lifestyle, because this is no way to live. How did we get tricked into this situation? Better question, how the hell do we get out of it?!
Well, we’re figuring that out as we go. Instead of living according to social expectations, we choose to live how we see fit to get the most out of life and make the happiest most satisfying life we can. For ourselves and our family. For us, this is bailing out on our work and careers and making a major lifestyle change to fit this new dreams and expectations. Until then, we’ll keep planning, saving, and discovering what it is we truly want to do once we walk away from this lifestyle.
I don’t know about you, but viewing it as a “Fully-Funded Lifestyle Change” instead of “early retirement” has me excited more than ever to see what the future holds.
Do you feel like you’re stuck in the hamster wheel of life and want out? What have you done to change your life to focus on what you deem important? Do you think we are just bat-shit crazy and dealing with a mid-life crisis?
a: Huey, S. “Once in a Lifetime”. Allmusic. b: Gittens, I. (2004). Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime: The Stories Behind Every Song. Hal Leonard. Pp.68-71. ISBN 9780634080333.
