we must be rich!!!!
Updated: Sep 16, 2022
When we chose to start this lifestyle at a relatively young age, for “retiring”, we’d get the “look.” Slanted eyes and a tilted head, and you could almost hear the wheels turning in their heads. I know, if any of my friends or family came to me with the same plan, I’d react the same way – no judgement here.
Are we rich, did we come into an inheritance? The answer is a resounding NO! No to both the questions. We are able to do this due to an accumulation of decisions over our lifetime.
First, we got married very young. We both lived with our parents until we were married. Therefore, other than paying rent (very low rent) to our parents, car insurance, gas and money for going out – we really had no bills. So, we started our marriage out with no debt, and began at that time to live within or below our means.
Since we got married so young, we didn’t go the traditional college route. No college debt. The college we did acquire was paid for by the companies we worked for at the time. Back in the early 90’s companies (especially banks) had tuition reimbursement programs, and we took advantage.
We also decided early on that we would not be having children, and if you are a parent, you know how expensive kids are…so, I will just leave that here!!! Nuff said!
We made moves to different states for Ray’s advancement in the Financial Industry. And I went to Aesthetics School when I was 30, to take a new career path. How fortunate we are that the Aesthetics Industry BOOMED in the mid 2000’s. I had an amazing, and lucrative career by the time I left.
Throughout the years we maintained a lifestyle that kept us out of debt.
But when the rubber hit the road, and we finally decided to move forward with “dropping out” (we prefer that term to retiring – retiring makes us sound old LOL), Ray made no bones about it, and told me that my spending habits would have to change. We had to save “X” amount of dollars to execute this 5 year plan we gave ourselves. And if I couldn’t do that – this wouldn’t be happening.
I committed to stop going to Target and Starbucks for a month to see what difference it would make in growing our savings. I honestly didn’t think I went that much. Didn’t think it would make that much difference… but HOLY COW it made a HUGE difference. If you are the kind of person that goes to Target to just “walk around” but leave the store with a basket full of stuff – you may be shocked to see how much you’ll save by not going. With our being intentional about saving money, we were able to bank one paycheck and live off the other. At that time I wished we had done this sooner, our savings throughout the years would have been so much better. Oh well, can’t go back in time.
By the 3 years of savings, selling our house, selling just about everything we own, including Ray’s precious sports car and our other 2 daily driver cars, we were able to establish a nest egg that takes into consideration for emergencies, and decided we could hit the road for 10 years without working.
Well, it’s 2022, and our economy isn’t the same as it was when we left, and gas is definitely higher than what we budgeted. Not gonna lie, it’s a little unsettling.
We did work the Sugar Beet Harvest last year, and it made a huge impact on our budget. We had a couple of unexpected bills, like putting Sophie down and 2 surgeries for Brutus. The income we made during Harvest offset the unexpected beautifully. Therefore, we’re working the Harvest again this year, and see this as a way to keep us on the road without having to take any long-term gigs.
In summary, we are not rich, we did not come into money. We made choices that have allowed us to do this. And honestly, it’s still too soon to see if this will work out for us long term. We definitely don’t know what tomorrow brings, but we are committed to just taking it one day at a time.
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