The Financial Independence Project

The Joy of Travel – Making it a Priority

November 15, 2019 By Julia Leave a Comment

When we first started discussing Financial Independence several years ago one of the biggest concerns that was expressed was the idea that we were going to have to sacrifice doing anything enjoyable for a long time in order to save as much as possible as quickly as possible. This was problematic because neither of us wanted to give up everything just for the potential that we might be able to do a lot more things in the future. Luckily we quickly realized (thanks to a few books and blogs) that this was not an approach we had to follow. Instead we had control over the priorities in our life and could reorganize our finances to spend on the things that we loved and valued while cutting back on everything else that did not meet this criteria. Once we started to think this way it changed our outlook on the whole process.

One of the biggest priorities in our life, outside of family that I have discussed in prior posts, is our love to travel. We decided early on that both of us wanted to travel the world to see and do things that might be harder when we get older. We also want to do this with our kids and take them with us so that we get to experience all of this as a family. We have had discussions that if we had to choose between traveling now or later in life, we would rather do all of our traveling now, rather than when we are older, although hopefully we can do both. We benefit from having significant flexibility in our careers that allows us to travel while we continue to work which is a huge benefit and privilege. When I say we like to travel, I am not simply stating this as an idea, but something we put into practice. So far in 2019 we have spent 91 nights away from home (all out of state) traveling, and this does not include my personal travel (FinCon and CentsPositive), or one solo work trip. By the end of the year we will have traveled well over 100 days and we expect this will continue for the next several years. During this year we have traveled to England, Spain, France, Portugal, Mexico, Aruba, the Azores, as well as several states including multiple trips to California and Florida. Since I plan to start posting highlights of some of our trips on this blog (including the financial aspects) I thought it would be a good idea to talk about how we are able to travel so much and not completely derail our plans for financial independence…

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Cents Positive 2019 in Chicago: Looking back on an Amazing Weekend

October 24, 2019 By Julia 2 Comments

This past weekend I was fortunate to attend Cents Positive in Chicago and it was an absolutely amazing experience. Cents positive is a retreat where women can talk openly and candidly about money and financial independence. The conference was started by Tanja Hester in 2018, and this year there were two locations, one in Seattle and the other in Chicago. I would have loved to fly out to Seattle, but it was just not possible with my schedule, and Chicago was a lot closer!

I was only vaguely aware of Cents Positive (mostly from listening to the Fairer Cents Podcast) and had not really considered going until chatting with Tanja at FinCon. Talking to her really got me thinking about going and after getting back from FinCon I spent the next week trying to figure out a way to make the logistics of attending work. I did eventually find a way, and wow I am glad I did!

My Experience

I am struggling a little bit to describe my experience at the retreat in adequate terms since providing a description of the events does not even begin to do the experience justice. I can certainly talk about key moments and highlights from my perspective, but aside from framing this as a phenomenological discussion I will just have to use words like awesome, empowering, and uplifting.

If you are a woman who is interested in financial independence and cares deeply about the success of other women in this space, this is a retreat for you!

So here is a little bit about my experience…

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One year after surgery: Reflecting on FI and Mortality

September 19, 2019 By Julia 1 Comment

Exactly one year ago at 5am in the morning, my wife was driving me to the hospital for a major surgical procedure that was scheduled to start at 6:30am. I will never forget that surreal feeling as we drove on mostly empty roads to get there and thinking about how quickly time had passed since the time my surgery was scheduled until it was actually happening. This would be the first time I ever had any type of surgery, and this was several major procedures. I knew this day was coming for several months, but everything felt like it was happening so quickly in those last few days leading to the surgery. I spent a long time with my kids before they went to bed the night before, because I just did not have it in me to wake them up before heading to the hospital. While driving I felt a bit of regret about not being able to say goodbye in the morning, and really hoped that I did not miss the last opportunity for them to see me. The literally life saving surgeries and procedures I was having came with a fair amount of risk and I would be under general anesthesia somewhere between seven and eight hours. I knew the potential risks of complications and potential death going in, but there were no other medical or non-medical options available that would solve or even begin to address my medical issues. In this post I am not going to describe my medical history and details for the whole internet to read, and in fact I am unable to do so right now even if wanted to. As I think about this day one year ago, I want to use this event to highlight some of the impact this had both on planning and thinking as it relates to financial independence, and life in general. There is a significant amount of research in psychology that discusses how facing mortality can impact your outlook on life and self-perception as well as having a huge impact on your personality, disposition, and beliefs. This is especially true when potential events or diagnoses are directly related to one’s own mortality.

As I mark this year milestone I find myself reflecting on the past year and the future in many different ways. The good news is that as I am typing this post exactly one year from the day of my surgery, I can say that everything turned out well. Aside from a pretty rough recovery that lasted a few months, everything, at least from a physiological perspective, has normalized. In this post I want to reflect on how I prepared for my surgery since I knew it was coming about six months before it took place. This is going to come mostly from a financial perspective, but it is impossible to do so without including some of the personal and emotional aspects of preparing for this as well, and I think that is the point. So often we pretend personal finance, and especially financial independence is only about numbers, or about the math, but that ignores so many aspects of our lived experience. That being said, I am just going to dive in and share my approach preparing for this significant life event, especially when I had such a large amount of time between scheduling and the surgery taking place…

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Project End-goals

August 30, 2019 By Julia Leave a Comment

What are our plans once we reach financial independence…

One of the questions we sometimes get from the very few people we talk to in person about financial independence is what we plan to do when we retire early. I think this is a very important and valid question that needs to be thought about carefully. It is not just about hitting a number and then pulling the plug on mandatory work. There has to be a larger set of goals driven by what you truly value as important in your life, and not simply “I am going to hit my number then quit my job”. I have read too many stories of people who retire early, or even those who retire later in life that have no idea what to do with their sudden freedom from working a consistent job. Some end up going back to work while others might feel lost with what to do during the huge increase in free time. Our drive toward financial independence is not driven by a dislike or hatred of our jobs. In fact we both have more flexibility in our careers than most people, and we both feel like we are doing work that is important and provides a significant amount of fulfillment. I have stated in a couple of posts that I plan to leave academia shortly after reaching financial independence, but there are circumstances that would keep in the job longer if I was given more latitude to cut out the parts that are draining and detract from the real work I want to accomplish through. I just want to be upfront that given the right circumstances, both of us may work a few additional years completely on our terms after reaching financial independence (a work optional life). So with that important note here are our primary plans for what freedom and retirement look like…

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A Project off-track but not off the rails

August 8, 2019 By Julia Leave a Comment

Since rebooting our blog two months ago, I have had a few people send me messages asking about the gap between when we first started thinking and blogging about financial independence and now. First, I am excited to know that there are a few people who are currently reading the blog, and second this is a topic that has been on my list to discuss for the last several weeks. I have been trying to capture the details of why we essentially had our project go off-track (but not off the rails). Part of the reason I wanted to post something on this topic was to provide a little context to our path, and always be willing to show and admit that sometimes not everything goes as planned. I think too often there are some in finance, especially blogging, where everything posted seems to paint this perfect picture and path if you follow a set of well established guidelines and principles. While this may work for some from a purely mathematical or logical perspective, real life tends to be far different and varied especially when we add emotion, changing circumstances, privilege, luck, and other variables typically beyond our control. We all also have changes in plans that that we purposely make that has an impact on our goals as well as our life perspective. For us we simply want to be open that sometimes things just don’t go as planned, and even if you are extremely committed to something, there are still events that can seriously change the approach, focus, and outcome while pursuing financial independence.

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Some thoughts on Food Costs

July 31, 2019 By Julia Leave a Comment

When we set out on our journey to financial independence we did a thoughtful and detailed analysis of the areas we wanted to spend on without cutting back (mostly kids and travel), and what we want to cut back on significantly to increase our savings rate. One of the areas that was and continues to be a problem area for us is our spending on food. In our budget we have set what we feel is a reasonable target for spending for a family of four on both groceries, and occasionally eating out, but we routinely go over our budget in this area. Some months we do OK, and other months we completely blow past our budgeted amount. This in turn either lowers our savings rate, or makes us have to cut in other places. This is definitely a weak area in our spending and one we should be able to better control.

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