A month goes by fast. And it can feel endless at the same time. Earlier today I was reflecting on how events have transpired for me during this experiment, and with a couple of exceptions, I feel like I've accomplished what I set out to do. I curtailed, if not completely eliminated, wasteful spending. I learned a lot about my spending habits and what I need to do to change them. I made progress on past due bills and outstanding debts. I made mistakes. I exchanged some bad habits for others. I learned that I have a LOT of work left to do.
Like it or not, I need to keep in mind that this experiment is nothing but the first step in a long journey. Before all this trouble started, the layoffs, divorce, whatever, I used to think I had the next 20 years of my life figured out. I had a course plotted through my career, knew how I was going raise my family, had hopes even for an early retirement. That seems like someone else's life entirely now. Maybe in a way it is. I'm not really who I was back then. So much has happened to change my views on life and how to live it that I barely recognize that person I was just a couple of years ago.
But if I'm not that guy, then who am I? I'll try not to let this deteriorate into an existential identity crisis, but the question is a valid one. While it's certainly been a challenge so far, keeping ahead of monthly bills and saving what I can at the grocery store is only going to satisfy my ambition for so long. Eventually I'm going to want, and need, to move on to bigger things, and what little success I've had is already acting as a catalyst for that. I'm hesitant to move on too quickly though. I still feel like I'm not on solid ground. There are a few shadows looming over me that make me very nervous, and I'd like to get out from under them as quickly as possible. I'd rather not get specific, but one of the big ones starts with a "T" and ends with things you chop wood (and peoples' heads off) with. That's enough to make anybody nervous.
Moving forward into June, next fall, 2012 and further, I hope I can look back on this month and see it as the tipping point, the hammer dropping, the fire on the fuse. I can keep applying cliche metaphors, but you get the idea. I want all of this to stay near the forefront of my mind so that the daily process of living doesn't interfere with what I want to get out of life. That's been a challenge for me, and I'm still months, if not years, away from the position I want to be in. This is going to be less like a blitzkrieg and more like the trenches of the western front.
When I do get to that point, I want to be able to look down the road a little further and like what I see. Is early retirement still a possibility? I sure hope so. I like what I do professionally and find it very rewarding at times, but I'm never going to get rich doing it. I like the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, but it's a commonly known principle that you gotta spend money to make money. You only need to look at the title on the top of this page to see where I stand on that particular subject at the moment. Still, if the right opportunity and the right partners came along, I'd take a long, hard look at jumping ship from the working man's world and into my own business.
As for that early retirement? I'd like to think I'd be satisfied with having some property paid for and enough money in the bank and solid investments that I could work at what I wanted to, as much or as little as I wanted to, whether it generated a liveable income or not. By that time the little guy, god willing, will be all grown up and out on his own. Then the wind can blow me where it may. I sure wouldn't mind having my own tiki bar on a beach somewhere.
Or maybe I can go on a speaking tour with my hard earned formula for personal financial success...
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