Tag: Travel

Why You Should Quit Your Dream Job

I frequently hear on Financial Independence and Retire Early (FIRE) podcasts and read in FIRE blogs that the RE (Retire Early) part of the FIRE acronym should be dropped. They can’t imagine not working, they say, and besides, they enjoy working.

I know what they mean. I had my dream job, and I worked it even after I achieved full FIRE.  I had quit my career of 29 years in retail and hospitality management, and then I found the perfect job that I loved doing—educating military service members on personal finance. Despite my dream job having everything I wanted, I quit it just one year later. 

And, if you’ve reached FIRE, I think you should quit your dream job, too.

What? Quit you say? Then it couldn’t have been your actual dream job, right? Wrong.

This was my dream job! It had it all: an important mission educating military service members on personal finance, a kind and supportive boss, great co-workers, practically unlimited resources, lots of autonomy, great pay and benefits, no supervisor responsibilities, and the ability to telework as much or as little as I wanted.

Logo for the office of my dream job (I linked it to the FINRED website)

It was the perfect job for me! So why did I quit? 

In a nutshell, we have finite lives. As much as I valued this job, it wasn’t the number one thing I wanted to do AND it was physically and mentally keeping me from doing the things that I valued more.

My top five things I wanted to do were: travel, improve my health (walk and hike more in particular), spend more quality time with friends and family, follow my curiosity (to include learning a language), and read more books. It turned out that the sixth thing I wanted to do was help people improve their personal finances—my dream job.

What We Tell Ourselves About How It Is Going To Be

When I applied for the job, I made a bargain with myself that I would only work the required 40 hours a week. I committed to not work any extra hours or sit endlessly at a desk—a way of life that had plagued me throughout my working life.

I promised myself that I would use my free time to do those top five things I wanted to do. Since I had limited time off (4 weeks per year), I planned to jet-set off with my wife on the weekends to visit family and see new places.

To work on my health, I bought a new standing desk, new ergonomic chair, headset, and a variety of other office items to make my home office as comfortable as possible (I had a dedicated room upstairs with two nice windows). After work, I planned to walk every day and do my daily stretching and body-weight exercises. Also I would read more, study my Spanish, and spend more time with family and friends. It was going to be great! 

Since I didn’t need the money (I was fully FIRE), I committed to spending the extra $125K+ a year after taxes on travel and things that would make life easier, such as housekeeping, lawn care, and eating out, so I could maximize my time off.

So how did I do that year in my dream job, achieving the things that I wanted most in life? The reality was a lot different than what I planned.

Even My Dream Job Didn’t Fit Neatly into Working Hours 

I often worked extra hours despite my promise not to. At first, my justification to myself was that I needed to get up to speed on the new job. But after a couple of months, that justification morphed into a desire to accomplish a lot (and I did!). 

I’ve known for some that when I make a commitment to others, I place that higher than commitments I make to myself. This year of work after I reached FIRE reaffirmed that understanding. Work severely limited my ability to engage in my higher priorities. I didn’t need more money – I needed time. 

Traveling to Asia and having the time to visit the minor temple sights in Cambodia wouldn’t happen if I was working full time

Lots of Travel, But Little Decompression

I took many weekend trips that year. We often left on Friday nights and returned Sunday evenings (or Monday evening if it was a holiday). The fun weekend destinations included New Orleans (once with my wife and once for an NFL game with a friend), Phoenix (to see relatives), Miami (Formula One Grand Prix with a friend), Puerto Rico (for my birthday), rural Virginia (for CampFI Mid-Atlantic), Charleston (for our anniversary), and Thomas, West Virginia (for great bluegrass music).

I also took longer trips: 4 days in Minneapolis for a family reunion, 8 days in Newfoundland with my son, 10 days hiking Hadrian’s Wall in England, and about 10 days hosting our two adult kids over Christmas, though I worked several of those days.

While all of this travel may sound great, I found it to be tiring. There was no downtime between work and travel. On those weekends when I wasn’t traveling, I was researching and booking my airline, hotel, transportation, and excursions. Travel planning takes time.

Because I only had a couple days at each location, I found myself scurrying around when I got there, trying to maximize the visit (the way most Americans go on vacation). I was also traveling when everyone else did (weekends and holidays) and fighting crowds as a result.

My time off was limited by my work, and although I had a generous 4 weeks of paid time off each year, it wasn’t nearly enough. My higher priority to travel and follow my curiosity was being hampered by my dream job.

Did My Health Improve?

No. My sleep was hit or miss as it was often interrupted when I had an important upcoming meeting or project due—I couldn’t turn my mind off easily. Having a job that I cared a lot about was difficult to turn off when I closed my laptop.

Even with the new high-end standing desk, I sat for most of the day. I did get out for a walk most evenings before dinner, but I had difficulty fitting in my stretching and body-weight exercises as work started early. I was no longer biking with my friends on the weekends—it just didn’t fit.  

Hiked 10,000 foot peak in Vietnam. Not working enables lots of hiking, walking and biking in my days.

Did I Find More Quality Time With My Family and Friends?

No. While I did make some trips to visit family, they were limited by my time off (which was split between seeing new places and seeing family) and similar to my sightseeing, it was harried and less quality. I was seeing my family and friends about the same as I did before I reached FIRE—not enough. 

What About My Priorities of More Reading and Learning a Language?

Because I was so engrossed in the important work of my job, I was mentally exhausted at the end of most days. My best creativity and concentration were focused on better reaching military service members with quality personal financial information. After work I didn’t have the mental energy to read the books I wanted to, or focus on improving my Spanish—I found I needed to spend much of my free time mentally decompressing from work.

Relaxing and reading on my porch in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Since Quitting My Dream Job

After quitting my dream job, my wife and I fully embraced minimalism. We sold or gave away 98% of our belongings, turned our house into a long-term rental, and became full-time nomadic travelers with a backpack and a carry-on each. That change has been deeply valuable to us, and it took time–time I simply didn’t have when I was working my dream job. 

But here is where I really saw the effects of quitting. This comparison chart shows my time (counted in quality days) spent with friends, family and traveling during my year of working my dream job vs. my first year after quitting my dream job.

FriendsFamilyTravelTotal
Year During Dream Job13452381
Year After Dream Job43130178351
Quality Days Spent on Three of my Top Five Priorities.
Note: some days overlapped with family or friends on vacation, so I chose what the primary purpose was for each day listed to avoid double counting. It doesn’t add up to 365 because there were about 14 quiet days that didn’t neatly fall into any category, so I left them out of this tally.

By letting go of my sixth priority (my dream job) I have been able to fully achieve my top five.

  • I traveled more than in my previous 13 years combined.
  • I read more books than any year, to include college.
  • I spent more time on my health than I had in decades.
  • I spent 3.5 months practicing my Spanish to include in-person classes and daily app learning.
  • I spent 3x more quality time with family and many friends.

I have found contentment in my daily life and I couldn’t be happier. 

Is It Time to Quit Your Dream Job?

Even if you have  your dream job, that isn’t necessarily reason enough to keep working after achieving FIRE. I recommend that after some soul searching you ask yourself: “Is this job truly my top priority in my life and with my time?” If it isn’t, then ask yourself “Does this job hamper my higher priorities in any way?”  

If your answer is yes, and your dream job prevents you from fully doing any of your higher priorities, it is time to quit. 

Minimalism Changed Who I Am.

I used to be a (aspiring) musician, cyclist, gardener, canner, soccer coach, coin collector, stamp collector, home owner, and DIY handyman.  

I am no longer those things. I found that by selling, giving away, or otherwise disposing of my guitars, soccer gear, biking gear, coin and stamp collections, work files, house, and many, many, other possessions related to these pursuits, I was freed from the personas that took away my time and focus from the things that I wanted to be and do the most.

In his time management book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkman challenges us to focus on the top items that we want to accomplish. He shares a story attributed to Warren Buffet, where the billionaire allegedly advises to prioritize your top 25 things, focus on the top 5, and then actively avoid the remaining 20 items. Those items prevent us from spending the time needed to do our highest priorities very well. 

Burkman is not this prescriptive and shares that “you needn’t embrace the specific practice of listing out your goals (I don’t, personally) to appreciate the underlying point, which is that in a world of too many big rocks, it’s the moderately appealing ones—the fairly interesting job opportunity, the semi-enjoyable friendship—on which a finite life can come to grief.” 

This was an eye-opening revelation for me. In order to focus on what I wanted to be and do the most—husband, father, friend, and student as well as a nomadic traveler, camper, hiker, reader, personal finance coach, and historian—I needed to eliminate my many other personas and lower priorities.

One of my top priorities was to travel the world nomadically with a carry-on and a backpack. This goal required some major downsizing–I fully embraced minimalism with some surprising results. 

When I sold my (barely used) electric guitar, amp, and case back to the music store I bought it from (at a fraction of the price), I felt free! I was giving myself permission to no longer be a musician. I no longer had this physical reminder telling me “You should practice music. Remember, it is the 9th thing you want to accomplish?” It was a conversation I didn’t want to have. 

The time and money I spent trying to learn to play the guitar took time away from what I really wanted to do – read, travel, learn a language, and take better care of myself.

Likewise, by getting rid of my canning equipment, lawn care equipment, cars, house, tools, old files and collections, I released myself from numerous commitments and freed up enormous time and resources. 

Having newfound time and resources to focus on world traveling, my relationships, reading, sleeping, stretching, and hiking has been amazing. I have traveled more this year (2023) than any other year. I have read more books this year than any other (including college). I have spent more hours with my close family and friends than I had been. I walk and hike more than ever. I am constantly learning new things and tackling my foreign language proficiency goal.

Doing fewer things better is…better! Removing the physical possessions around these lower-priority identities made it happen. By getting rid of these possessions, I gave myself permission to be who I really wanted to be. Minimalism changed who I was. 

If you want to learn more about minimalism and techniques to downsize, I highly recommend Fumio Sasaki’s book Goodbye Everything. While I did not minimize to the extent that he did, I found his minimalism philosophy and techniques to be invaluable.

Home Exchanging: A Great Way to See the World

Since 2013, we have exchanged our Arlington, VA home 8* times (with several more planned exchanges foiled by the pandemic). We exchanged with families in Paris, Barcelona, Montreal, and Iceland, to name a few. With the world opening back up, this is a good time to share what is great about a home exchange experience.

* Update July 2023 — now 10 times (two in Pacific Northwest)

What is a Home Exchange?

A home exchange is an (informal) agreement between two families to exchange their homes free of charge. While there is no money exchanged, the online platforms charge an annual membership fee. These platforms facilitate exchanges between members. We joined HomeExchange.com, which is one of the larger platforms, but there are several other choices (e.g., Love Home Swap, People Like Us, Home Link, etc.).

There are four primary types of exchanges:

  • Simultaneous – exchange your home with another family during the same dates
  • Non-simultaneous – exchange your home with another family at different times (commonly used by people with second homes or other places to stay)
  • Hospitality exchange – host a family while you are still home, to be reciprocated at another time
  • Points exchange – stay in a family’s home (often their second home, or while they are elsewhere) “spending” points generated through the platform

A home exchange can also include an exchange of cars, lawn care, and pet care. When exchanging cars with the Prague family, we each agreed to pay the other’s insurance deductible if we had an accident. Neither of us had an accident and it was great having access to a free car for the two-week period.

While exchanging with an Irish family, we mowed each other’s lawns. We’ve fed fish and watered plants, too. We haven’t cared for dogs or cats, but that’s possible if you wish–you and your exchanging family are free to set the terms you’d like.

What You Can Save in Money

Here is a quick rundown of our exchanges and a rough estimate of our savings for buying similar lodging, food in restaurants, and extras. Note, getting an AirBnB with a kitchen would similarly save on vacation food costs. You can adjust your numbers based on what you expect to save.

Estimates of savings from home exchange over traditional hotels

Another way to increase value is to build up exchange points through your online home exchange platform. Under HomeExchange.com (the site we use), we earn exchange points for letting families stay in our home while we are away visiting family or taking some other vacation. We also earn points hosting families in our ground floor unit while we are home upstairs.

These points add up quickly and can fund additional travel when you are unable (or prefer not) to do a simultaneous exchange. You can see we have used our points for two exchanges, and we have enough saved up for a third trip.

The True Value of Home Exchanging

While saving approximately $26K for these 9 trips is fantastic and great for our budget (we also started using credit card travel rewards points in 2016 to offset our airline costs), we found the most valuable part of home exchanging is being better immersed in local culture and farther away from the tourist traps.

Our homes were located in neighborhoods, not hotel zones. We frequently met with the exchange families or their relatives and friends during our stays and shared many meals with them. We received local advice on the best restaurants, tips for getting around and what to do and see. One of our best experiences was touring Prague with a well-known Czech glass artist to include a visit to his glass studio in a communist era building.

At Czech glass artist Jiří Šuhájek’s studio in Prague (Jiří is wearing the hat)

In Lismore, Ireland, we enjoyed Irish music performed by a local family in a tiny pub. It was a Thursday night and wasn’t intended for tourists–just local people sharing beloved old Irish tunes together. Our kids were invited to try out the traditional instruments, and an older gentleman at the bar broke out in a moving song. He sang and danced right from the heart, and we, far from the beaten tourist path, were there to see it.

Enjoying a meal with our exchange family (we are on the right — I think my son ate the plate too :-0)

The nature of home exchanging encourages slower travel, because we want to take advantage of our free lodging. By limiting our city/country hopping, we delve deeper into the local area, getting to know neighbors and local shop employees during our stay. We don’t see as many cities that way, but what we see we see really well, and those deeper memories have lasting power.

What Exchangers are looking For

While home exchanges are available almost everywhere on the globe, there are more in some regions. Home exchanging is very popular in European countries, so we receive many offers from Europe. We also find that South American and British Commonwealth nations (such as Australia and Canada) are well represented, as well as European and Commonwealth expats living in other countries.

Exchangers are often looking for exchanges in NYC, other major U.S. cities with public transportation, beaches (e.g., CA and FL), swimming pools, or locations near other interesting U.S. touristy areas (e.g., major National Parks). That being said, there can be interest in out-of-the-way U.S. destinations, especially if the exchanging family has already been to the U.S. on a previous trip.

Being near DC, we find that many exchangers have either already visited NYC and want to see some place new, or they want to connect a trip to NYC with a long stay in DC.

Tips for Successful Home Exchanging

Getting started:

  • Shop around for the home exchange online platform(s) that best fit your needs. While we use HomeExchange.com, there are others you may prefer.
  • Create a great profile for your family and your house. You may not be in Manhattan, but many locations in the U.S. offer something cool and interesting. Be sure to explain how close you are to great sites or what amenities your home features. A well-written home profile will increase your exchange opportunities
  • Take great, well-lit photos. Lead with a cover photo of the outside of your home looking its very best. Follow that with the best features of your house, such as a great deck, pool, view, or balcony. If you lead with a picture of a bedroom, even if it’s really nice, viewers will assume there is little appealing about the outside of the home. After outside shots, follow up with sparklingly clean and tidy interior photos.
  • Listing more beds will help, as larger families are looking for more space.
  • Personalize it. If you welcome kids, point out the toys or other kid-friendly features of your home. Our huge tub of Legos was a big hit for a visiting 3-year-old!
Use photos that capture the best features of your house (view from our deck)

Tips for getting an exchange:

  • Send out lots of exchange queries. When we want to go to a particular location, we send out 40-50 requests. The platform populates your last response, so you can send out a volume of requests with relative ease.
  • Be flexible. We were trying hard to get an exchange in Montreal when we received an offer to go to Prague. So, we went to Prague. The next year we were trying to go to Budapest when we received a great offer in Montreal. So, we went to Montreal. If many places seem appealing, you’ll land in an appealing place.
  • Expect similar exchanges to your home. We are in a close suburb to DC, so we tend to get offers from families who live in similar proximity to their city centers. Our couple of downtown exchanges took a lot of queries (and rejections) before we landed them.
  • If you get an offer from a desired Asian location, take it. There are far fewer opportunities to exchange in Asia. We had just locked in our Barcelona trip when we received a great offer from Hanoi, Vietnam. “Missed it by that much!”
  • When you get an offer you are interested in, set-up a Zoom or Facetime call to “meet” the other family. You can see quickly that they are who they say they are and their home is what they posted. You can line up the details and discuss expectations. For example, we usually mutually agree to leave sheets and towels in the laundry room, and each family will wash their own when they return home. This makes the last day of both our vacations a little smoother. If there will be a car exchange or fish to feed, this is a good time to talk it over.
  • Keep lines of communications open. We share a guide to our house and our local area with lots of tips for great things to do and places to eat. We have helped our exchange families buy concert tickets, reserve hard-to-get museum and historical site tickets, and provided them DC Metro system cards. Families have left us gourmet treats from their area, maps, and small souvenirs. It’s part of the fun of home exchange to extend warm hospitality to each other.

No, They Won’t Steal (or Break) Your Stuff

When we share our stories of home exchanging we often hear, “But aren’t you worried about them taking (or breaking) your stuff?”  In short, no. We have had wonderful experiences with every exchange. No broken or missing items. Our house is always left clean and tidy. Even so, we do take a few minor precautions to make the exchange go smoothly:

  • Facetime call in advance with the other family to build a good relationship (see tip above). Be open and honest about any questions you have. Follow up with emails. The family will quickly turn from strangers into friends.
  • Put away valuables or breakables like laptops or car keys (if not exchanging cars).
  • Let your neighbors know what’s going on. We usually have a neighbor with a spare house key meet the exchange family (if we had to depart before their arrival). Our wonderful neighbors have enjoyed hosting the visiting family with an American-style BBQ.
  • Using our Kwikset locks, I easily reset the house locks to a separate set of keys just in case one is lost during the exchange. I then set the locks back when I get home. While no keys have been lost yet, it’s good to know it wouldn’t be a problem.

Even if you did arrive home and found something unimaginable, say, your sofa had a large red wine stain and your dishes were broken, it would still cost far less to replace or repair than what we saved on our vacation. Anything worse than that would be covered by our home insurance, minus the deductible. It would take a lot of theft and damage to offset the $26K (and counting) we’ve saved so far. Since we buy durable and functional things and our money is invested in stocks and not collectibles, it’s easy for us to relax, knowing our original Van Gogh won’t be ruined. And I believe that even if we did have a Van Gogh, it would be fine. We’ve found the people interested in this style of travel to be thoughtful, careful, and generous. It’s going to be a great exchange. 

Conclusion

Home exchanges are a great way to travel, both for saving money and getting a more in-depth experience away from touristy paths. It is based on trust and hospitality. I hope you will find the same joy exchanging your home as we have.

Please leave a comment if you are going to give it a try, or you have a great home exchange story to share. I’d love to hear about it!

A toast to your first (next) home exchange!