Last week we talked about how our two-ish year timeline affords us some luxuries in making preparations for our move. If we had come up with this idea 6 months before our youngest graduated from high school, we probably would be so busy we wouldn’t have time to write about the process!
But we did start wondering, what would we have done differently if we had thought of this even earlier? What choices would we have made differently if we had come up with this idea 5 or 6 years out instead of post-pandemic?
To be completely realistic, had we thought of this 5 or 6 years ago, we would have laughed it off as a pipe dream. At that time, our oldest was still in college, our middle was in high school and our youngest was in elementary school. Gene’s mother was living with us with and could not live on her own. At various times in that 2018-2019 time frame Gene and I both went through brief stints at unemployment. And remote work was not a realistic option for most jobs. So, yeah, had we thought of this then, we may have just laughed it off and not given it another thought. It would have seemed unattainable.
But…
Let’s just play this out. Say you are currently somewhere in that phase where you are 5-6 years from being able to make these kinds of plans. Some portion of the circumstances above might be true for you or have been true for you in the recent past. Or your circumstances might be limiting in a completely different way.
Regardless of the circumstances, the question remains: How does this seemingly unattainable plan become more attainable?
The secret is in knowing where you want to go and getting the pieces in place to get there. Whether your time frame is 5 years or 15 years, change like this doesn’t happen without a goal and a plan to get to that goal. Everything in the list below will set you up for options down the road.
Flexibility is freedom. Your plans may change. But regardless of what your idea of freedom looks like, starting early and making decisions with your plan and your goal in mind will help you avoid getting sidetracked by all the shiny things in the world that try to lure us away from that freedom.
A 5(ish)-year plan to flexibility (freedom)
1. Consult a financial planner. As most of you are well aware, neither of us is a financial planner and this is not financial advice. We recommend consulting a financial planner early in your process to determine how best to move forward financially.
2. Pay off all credit cards and stay out of debt. We are not giving financial advice, but I can tell you what any financial advisor worth their salt will tell you to do first. If you have credit cards with a balance, pay them off as soon as you can. We do recommend the debt payoff spreadsheets at TrueMoneySaver.com as a good way to list your debts, along with their minimum payment and interest rate to determine your best path forward in paying them off. Once you’ve paid them off, stop using them. Dave Ramsey says to close the accounts, but that will ding your credit score, so make the choice that feels right to you.
3. Side hustles (bring in all the cash while you can). Regardless of your life circumstances, there is always a way to bring in extra cash. What skills do you have? Are you able to put in weekend and evening work? Yard work, food delivery, Uber/Lyft driving, and freelance sites like Upwork all have flexible options. Do you have a skill that translates into a side hustle, like tax preparation or carpentry work? Use it!
4. Refinance your mortgage to a lower interest rate. Right now, interest rates or hovering at the mid 6% range. Mortgage rates are terrible right now, so be ready when the rates go back down. You’ll need good credit to get the best rates, so do the work now to get your credit score in order (see numbers 1 and 2 above) so you can be ready to jump on a lower rate. Resist the urge to get cash out. Resist.
5. Possibly downsize your house. This one goes with a very large grain of salt. As of writing this, mortgage rates are terrible, and it may be cheaper to stay in the house you have. But remember, this is a five-to-six-year plan. So, keep watching the market, and consult a real estate agent. Half the battle is being ready when the conditions turn favorable.
6. Buy the car that you need, not the one you want. There is a reason we all have heard the story about the millionaire who drives the beat up ten-year-old sedan. It is an easy parable that serves to remind us that things are not always what they seem. The person in the well-worn but paid off truck may have much more freedom of choice than the person with a $700 car payment on a shiny new sports car.
7. Delay big expensive vacations and instead focus on treating trips as scouting. Here is where our advice deviates a bit. If finances were the only goal, we would tell you not to travel. But our goal is the freedom to go where we want to go. So we spend money on travel that, financially speaking, could be spent on paying down the principal on our mortgage. But we don’t just travel for the sake of travel. For the most part, we travel to scout out future landing places for our nomadic life. Our trips also serve as a way to energize us toward our ultimate goal of full-time travel.
8. Look at home repairs as a cost/resale value balancing act. Once you start looking at your home as an asset rather than a home, you view home repairs and renovations differently. If we had started our renovations 5 years ago instead of this year, we would have taken our time to make small changes that we could DIY ourselves, knowing that we had the time to devote to them. We are currently repainting the entire house, including the woodwork, because we know that we have both the time and the ability to do the job ourselves. With another couple of years of time, we probably would have taken on bathroom and kitchen renovations ourselves as well.
We also would have made some decorating decisions that might not appeal to us long-term but would appeal to new buyers.
9. Declutter and keep it that way. Less stuff. That’s the goal. It is beneficial financially, emotionally, and logistically. If you can’t consume it, don’t buy it. (Spoiler alert, this will be the topic of next week’s blog post!)
10. Avoid expensive hobbies. Expensive hobbies come with expensive stuff. Usually that stuff won’t fit in a suitcase. If full-time travel is your goal, any expensive hobbies, and the paraphernalia that come with them, will weigh you down, literally and figuratively. Ditch the wood lathe or sneaker collecting in favor of hobbies that travel well, like bird watching or hiking.
11. Avoid keeping up with the Jones and retail therapy. Social media tends to make us think everyone is living a better life than we are. We won’t belabor this point because we all know this, deep down. We will say, use your goal as fuel to resist this. Share your goals with your circle, so when you say no to those friends who always want to go out for expensive dinner and drinks, they will understand. Better yet, invite them to your house for dinner and board games. Maybe you will inspire them to rein their spending in too!
In the end, freedom is not normal. Dave Ramsey (who I agree with on some things and disagree with on others) has said to be weird or be broke. Refocus your mindset to remove the societal norms. Massive companies employ other equally massive companies to figure out who to get into our psyches to make us buy more things.
Your plan and your timeline need to serve as your mantra. Your ultimate goal has to be bigger than the shiny thing in front of you right now. That’s why we recommend that, if you are part of a couple, your partner has to be on board. You have to stand together and provide strength and support when the other has a moment of weakness. You have to be willing to be the “fun police” sometimes. It may suck in the moment, but when you are sitting in side-by-side lounge chairs poolside with a cocktail in one hand and a view of the ocean in front of you (or insert your dream here), it will be totally worth it.
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