My Next Life: Series Share

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One of my favorite blogs out there, ‘Our next Life’ has posted an open invite to piggyback off of one of their recent blog posts. ONL features an anonymous couple that plans to retire in 2017 at ages 38 and 41. They have it pretty meticulously planned out and I love their posts. Recently they shared some daydreams about what their life in early retirement will look like and the things they want to do. I’ve decided to join the series and share my own dream of my next life!

I want to post a caveat right off the bat. I am at the very beginning of my FIRE journey and there are lots of things in my life that I simply don’t know yet or can’t be certain will happen. I’m not married and there are no plans for that, but it’s a hope of mine. Likewise I’m not currently a homeowner and probably won’t be for another few years but it’s something I’m working towards.

I’m not even sure what I’ll be retiring from! I don’t plan to stay at my current job very much longer and I have no idea where I’ll be moving to or what I’ll be doing there. So far my FIRE plan is just to make and save as much money as possible, no matter what I’m doing!

So this plan is very vague and has almost no specifics, simply because my life is still tremendously open to change in tremendous ways.

The Goal

While I am a long way from early retirement (like, a loooong way) it is my ultimate goal. I’m 27 now and would like to be retired by age 40. Ideally what my early retirement will look like is financial independence, achieved through frugality and investing over these next 13 years. I want to have financial security and be able to be location independent.

I’m very open to the idea of working part time as long as that work is something that I am not financially dependent on and doesn’t tie me down in inordinate ways. No weekly meetings or dress codes for me! I’d volunteer for an organization I support as well.

Ultimate Dream Life

Let me paint you a picture of my dream life. Come away with me…

I’m 40 years old. I own my own home, free and clear. I paid off the mortgage a few years before I retired. I have a little more than half a million dollars saved up in my investments, enough for me to live on roughly $18,000 a year during my retirement.

My house is somewhere fairly rural, in a state like North Carolina or Georgia. (I’d rather be hot than cold!) I’d love to be in a small college town, where there’s a restaurant with killer guacamole, a library and a movie theater. I can light a fire in my fireplace in the winter and I can sit in my own backyard with a beer in the summer. I’ve got south facing windows in my house, to soak up as much sunlight as possible, and a chicken coop in the corner of the yard. I want a puppy I can watch grow into a mature dog in my home.

For half the year (or maybe the length of the school year) I rent out this lovely home of mine so that I can travel. I really want to be able to do some slow travel around this wide world of ours. Ideally I’d be able to use the rent money to help fund my travels and not have to dip too much into my savings while I’m on the road.

I want to spend significant time abroad as well as tooling around the USA in a small camper. Just off the top of my head I’d like to: visit every national park in the US, spend a bunch of time by the Great Lakes, hike the Appalachian Trail, explore the Rocky Mountains in depth. Abroad I want to see South America over the course of at least 5 months, spend a month in South Africa, visit the pyramids, wind my way through southeast Asia, live in Spain for a few months, explore Russia and hike my way around New Zealand. If I’m being really honest there’s actually no place on this earth I don’t want to go. I have a lot of wanderlust and I am happy to go anywhere to satisfy it!IMG_4611More of this please!

When I come back to my home I plan to spend my time making it as homey and perfect for me as possible. I also want to be able to write extensively. I’ve always wanted to write a book and have even started a few times. I think my early retirement is just the time to write the next great American novel. I actually salivate over the thought of a home office and a day where I have nothing else to think about besides my own writing.

I want to be able to spend all day outside in the sun or all day writing at home if I want. I want to have a small garden in the backyard and to cook all my meals at home. I want to be able to bike around my entire town and not need a car. I want to spend my time hiking and exploring the natural world around me. I want to read at my kitchen table in the evening light. I want to play my guitars. I can think of a million things I want to do with my time and I look forward so much to being able to do all those things.

The Fact of the Matter 

Like I said before, I’m very far from all of these things. I”m not even sure I can have all of these things at the moment. (Can I have chickens and a dog and still travel the world for 6-9 months a year?) If I do end up with a partner I’ll need to incorporate things he wants and make adjustments to my savings calculations. I don’t even know where exactly I want to end up owning a home!

Lots of things are yet to be determined and I’m afraid many of them won’t be figured out for another five years or so. I have no plans to get married until my early thirties and if I do, I’ll have to figure that into my budget. Since I want to ramp up my retirement savings at the moment, I won’t begin saving for my own home until I’m thirty.

First Things First

I’m planning a move from Austin in the next year and need to figure out what my immediate next city and job will be before I go around locking down my early retirement life. I have to save for that move and several weddings I have next year. I have to start saving way more for my retirement too. I’m on track to max out my IRA this year but $5,500 a year doesn’t buy FIRE. There’s lots to do between now and then but still- it’s really nice to have a dream!

ONL was good enough to put some questions in their post to help people get started. Most of the questions are unanswerable for me at this point. Still, these are things I need to figure out on my quest for early retirement. I encourage you to write your own ‘next life’ post and link back to both me and Our Next Life!

  • what will your transition be like? will you be quitting a job? making a move? how will all of that go down?
  • what are the big goals you have for your next life, or just the goals for the first five years or so?
  • what are the little day-to-day goals you have for yourself?
  • will you quit working, change what you do for work, or stay the course?
  • what will a day in the life look like?
  • how will you manage your finances in the next stage?
  • what will excite you about getting out of bed every day?
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16 Replies to “My Next Life: Series Share”

  1. Really enjoyed reading this post, such an interesting idea ! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

    1. thanks! The idea of early retirement totally reshaped my approach to life and finances.

  2. Love this! And thanks for the links back and sweet comments about our blog. 🙂 ::blushing::

    Your next life sounds wonderful — so dreamy. I love the aspirations to be somewhere small and rural, to travel a ton, to surround yourself with lots of animals. (I’m sure you can find someone to take care of them as part of the deal to rent your place!) And I especially love your writing aspirations! Can’t wait to read your great American novel in 13-15 years! 🙂

    1. Thank YOU for the kind words. I love reading your blog and you’ve been helpful to me as I start this journey. I think we’re real blog friends and I’m into it!

      1. Me too! 🙂 It’s the best thing ever to know that our blog is helpful to you.

  3. Killer addition to the Our Next Life blog series (and a special thanks to Our Next Life – the blog – for turning this into a series). Your plans sound similar to ours in our desire to travel both the country and the world. There is so much of our nation that most people just don’t get to see and appreciate.

    One thing that you’ll probably find is that, once you really get into this whole early retirement mindset, things get much, much easier. It’s not that you “can’t” go out to eat at that expensive restaurant. Instead, you DON’T eat out at those kinds of places. You don’t spend more than $20k, for example, on a car. You don’t spend more than 3-times your salary on a home.

    And you might find that you’ll be able to retire sooner than you expect, too. The biggest qualifier in determining your FI date is your early expense number post-retirement. The smaller that number is, the earlier that you can retire. My wife and I, for example, plan to live off of $30k/year and full time travel.

    Thanks again for continuing the series, and I love the sound of your early retirement plans! 🙂

    1. Thank you! I am a total nerd about crunching numbers and trying to figure out what I can live on. It’s hard because as I mention I have some things that I’m not sure if/when they will happen (like marriage). But I figure I can set myself up as best as possible each and every day by living frugally and saving now.

  4. […] debt will hold me back from any serious financial success. Especially as I start working towards my next life in early retirement I know that any debt will be a roadblock to reaching those […]

  5. […] that discusses your early retirement plans in some detail.  From Frugal to Free posted their early retirement goals recently, which also happens to include a good amount of travel in a camper.  Thanks for continuing the […]

  6. […] off of From Frugal to Free and Our Next Life, I thought I would add my own “My Next Life: Series”. […]

  7. […] to max out my IRA, something that gets me ridiculously excited. I’m trying to get myself to my next life as early as […]

  8. […] off the series, we’ve had great contributions from maggie at northern expenditure, kara at from frugal to free, and my countdown to freedom. who’s next? (and let us know if we missed […]

  9. […] with Think Save Retire. Afterwards, Our Next Life jumped on board, and Northern Expenditure, From Frugal to Free, and My Countdown to Freedom all chimed in. All of their answers are incredibly […]

  10. […] ultimate goal is to reach FIRE and I’ve already got a picture of what that looks like. However in the short term I want to increase my income and change my daily lifestyle a bit. I […]

  11. […] to Our Next Life for starting this little challenge and for From Frugal to Free for introducing it to me. What do you want your life after retirement to look […]

  12. […] thing is, there are many things I want from my life. I want my own home. I want to do long term and slow travel. I want to write a book. I want to hike […]

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