Well, folks. The world is wild right now. Maybe because of this, maybe not, I’ve missed some blog milestones. The 3-year anniversary of DINKS on a Bus has come and gone. My 1-year anniversary of hitting Flamingo FI (half my FI number) has come and gone. I had high hopes to write posts to commemorate these occurrences and more, so today, I’m coming at you with a GIANT update post. An update of all the things: from how I’ve made shifts in saving my money, to switching to (yes, another) new job, to buying a new (to me) car. Read on for all the details!
First, a little backstory for those of you who are newer to the blog. When I first discovered FIRE (financial independence, retire early) around 2016, I was enthralled with the prospect of being work optional and not having to work. However, the “retire early” part of FIRE never really spoke to me. Then I discovered slow FI and Coast FI. I loved the idea of slowing down and enjoying the journey to FI, especially since I wasn’t desperate to retire. And the definition of Coast FI really intrigued me: having enough saved in investments so that you don’t have to add another dollar in order for your nest egg to grow to what you need by traditional retirement age. But as a relatively risk averse person, as well as someone whose been frugal and saving for most of her life, I couldn’t really get down with the idea of completely taking my foot off the gas and only covering my expenses. There was too much uncertainty with that approach for me. But then, I discovered the concept of Flamingo FI, simply the milestone of reaching half your FI number. The more I read about Flamingo FI, the more it resonated with me. It became a goal for me to reach, the point at which I would let myself start to take my foot off the gas.
And so, I made it a goal to go down to part-time work when I reached Flamingo FI. I hit Flamingo FI around February 2024, and I shifted to part-time work 3 months later. If you’re interested, you can read even more about these milestones, and the decisions that went along with them, in these posts:
- I’ve Reached Flamingo FI! Now What?
- It’s Time to Rock the Boat
- 3 Months Into Part-Time Work: An Update
So for over a year now, I’ve been living my best Flamingo FI life and working part time.
How’s that been going? Let’s break it down into money, work, and miscellaneous updates.
Money updates: saving and spending
When I first shifted to part-time work, I continued to contribute 20% of my paycheck to my 401k, but I stopped contributing the $2k per month I had been contributing to my brokerage account. Instead, I shifted that $2k of savings into my HYSA (high-yield savings account) to contribute toward sinking funds, including a travel fund, a new car fund, and building up my cash cushion for when I decide to downshift considerably/shift to freelance work.
I stayed on this same savings trajectory for the remainder of 2024. Then, when 2025 arrived, I decided to decrease my contribution into my 401k from 20% to 10%, and I put the difference into my HYSA for my sinking funds.
Travel
The decision to start saving into a travel sinking fund came about due to two main events. First, I learned that my cousin (who has been living in Germany with her German husband for the past year) was planning on having a wedding celebration at some point in 2026. In Germany!
On top of that, since I hit Coast FI and then Flamingo FI, I’ve been toying with exercising a bit more of a “Die With Zero” mindset. If you haven’t read the book of the same name by Bill Perkins, I highly recommend it. While I don’t agree with every point in the book, the overarching theme is a good one to think about. So many of us with a frugal, high-savings-rate mindset are likely going to end up with more money than we need, and Perkins argues that many of us can afford to spend more along the journey to FI. I don’t plan for my spending to get out of hand, but as someone who has erred on the side of frugality all her life, I have been playing around with a mindset shift toward abundance and spending on things that bring me joy/are aligned with my values. Supporting my cousin AND going to Germany/seeing more of Europe are things I am highly motivated to do because they are aligned with my current values.
I also wanted to take my mother on a trip for her 65th birthday sometime in 2025. My mom and I used to travel a lot together before I met Mr. Dink, and we haven’t taken a real long-distance trip together since 2016. She was thrilled that I wanted to do this with her, and we are heading to Banff National Park next week (one of the places on both of our bucket lists) for a hiking trip. It will not be cheap by my standards, but that is ok with me because I was intentional going into this decision. We both picked the trip together and were involved in every stage of the planning. I was willing to spend more than I would otherwise to have a special trip with my mom and create memory dividends. I’ll post more about this trip once we’re back!
I also didn’t hesitate (ok, I hesitated a little) to book a weekend yoga retreat for myself at Kripalu when I took 2 weeks off in April (when I was in-between jobs). Going back to Kripalu (I had been once before) had been on my wish list for awhile, and when I saw that my meditation teacher was leading a workshop and that I would get a chance to practice with her in person, I took the leap.
All of these spending decisions have felt extravagant, because that’s just who I am. We did always take vacations when I was a kid, but they were modest, and my parents weren’t shy about their budget and needing to be frugal while we traveled. So I have had a hard time spending money on fun and vacation in my adulthood. Again, something I’m aware of but also trying to adjust as I navigate this world as an adult on my own. For example, I almost didn’t go on the yoga retreat. I had a hard time pulling the trigger. But ultimately, I did it, in part by reminding myself that I had indeed planned for all this (for example, by creating a sinking fund). Thus, I had the money, and I was not in fact being frivolous or spending extravagantly. And I’m SO glad I went; the yoga retreat ended up being completely worth it!
Car
In the post where I shared that I first hit Flamingo FI, I wrote:
My car is also over 10 years old, and while I love her and believe she’ll give me at least another 5 years, the truth is that we never know. It may be time to start saving up a sinking fund for when I’m in the market for another car.
Well, a little more than a month after I wrote those words (did I jinx it? probably), I received the dreaded news. I found out that my 2013 Subaru Crosstrek wouldn’t pass Vermont inspection because of rust. I was devastated. I got second opinions. I even went to this guy’s shop in the middle of nowhere in Vermont, because he was known to everyone in the community as the “rust buster,” but it was no use. The hard truth was that 1) my car was not going to pass inspection as it was, 2) it would take more than $1200 dollars to get it to pass, and 3) it was likely that my whole suspension would fall apart from rust within the next year or so. I was so bummed, but at the same time, I had prepared for this. I had been putting money aside for exactly this day. I just didn’t think that day would come so soon!
I know this community has a lot of opinions about cars (new vs used) and financing said cars. Even though I said I’d never finance a car again, I decided to do just that. I hadn’t quite saved up enough to buy the car I ended up wanting outright with cash, and I didn’t want to draw from my investments, so I put a good chunk of cash down and financed the rest. We’ll see if I decide to pay it off early or just let it ride.
So what did I buy? Because of some of the things I learned about Subarus in the process of getting second opinions on my rust issue, I decided to switch it up. I went with a 2021 Toyota Rav4 that I am hoping will last longer than my Subaru did. It’s only been 6 months, but so far I’ve been very happy with my choice.
Cash cushion
As I’ve shared in other recent posts, going to part-time work has only made me want to have even more time and to work even less. I feel deeply that freelancing/contracting is on the horizon someday in the perhaps not-so-distant future. I’ve been wanting to build up my cash cushion to about 2 years worth of expenses before making the plunge. Even if that doesn’t end up happening, that was the number that felt good and that I wanted to strive for. I’m still working toward it, so we’ll see how it goes. And speaking of “working”…
Work updates: a new part-time job
The work journey has definitely been an interesting one, and it’s always surprising me. There’s never a dull moment!
Given the fact that I’ve been craving even more time freedom since shifting to part-time work, I assumed that freelancing would be my next move if I were to have left my previous job. It seemed like that would be the next right, and most obvious, step in my work life.
But then I was a speaker at the Fioneers’ Slow FI Retreat, which I wrote about in more detail in this post. Jordan Grumet, author of Taking Stock and The Purpose Code, was also there, and he gave the keynote talk. In it, he told his infamous parable of the 3 brothers, a story he’s been telling for awhile now and that I’d heard probably at least 5 times by this point.
But for some reason, hearing it this time, at the Slow FI Retreat, was completely different for me. I resonated more than ever with the 3rd brother.
Let me briefly explain. The parable tells the story of 3 brothers on the journey to financial independence. The first brother walks the road to FI incredibly fast. He makes sacrifice after sacrifice along the way because he just wants to get there as fast as possible. He makes it in record time, and so he has a long life of financial freedom ahead of him, but he’s tired and his body is failing. He spends much of his newfound freedom recovering from burnout. The second brother really takes his time on this journey. He gets sidetracked easily. Although it takes him awhile to get to the end of the road, once he gets there, he may be older than his younger brother was he reached FI, but he has lots of energy left to give. And then there’s the third brother, who takes even longer of a journey than the second brother. He reaches the end decades after his other brothers, but he takes his time and enjoys his life to the fullest along the way. And here was the real kicker for me: He loves the journey he took SO much, that when he gets to the end of the road, he turns right around and starts walking the path all over again.
For whatever reason, when I heard the parable told this time, I got full body chills when thinking about the third brother. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about him through the whole weekend of the retreat. Something about hearing his story told this time really resonated with me. I identified more than ever with that third brother. I had taken steps and done experiments to start living my best life now, and I was really doing it! I was enjoying life! I didn’t care at all about getting to FI because I was loving the journey. I felt so fulfilled. But here’s the catch. I felt fulfilled in every part of my life, except work.
Even though I’m working part-time, work still makes up a huge portion of my time. Thirty hours per week, to be exact. I realized at the Slow FI Retreat that if I really wanted to walk the path of the third brother, I had to figure out a way to get more fulfillment, more joy, and more happiness from work. I knew I couldn’t rely on work to make me happy, but I needed to be somewhere a bit different from where I was that day – I needed something to change.
That experience got me really thinking about a shift to freelancing sooner rather than later, in order to get more freedom around my time and the work that I did.
But something interesting happened a few months after the retreat. I saw a job post for a role that I had never ever seen before, but that when I read the description, gave me full body chills. It felt like a role I could have dreamed up for myself, or one that ChatGPT would have made up for me if I asked it to create my ideal job based on my skills and passions. On top of that, the role was at a company that I’d been following for awhile out of interest and where I had a former colleague connection.
That former colleague gave me a referral, and although I learned that that particular position had already been filled, they said they had another job (similar to the role I was in at the time) that they would love to interview me for. Because I was feeling so unfulfilled at my last job at the time, I figured, what did I have to lose? I could at the very least do an interview, hear a bit more. And so, I started the interview process.
The interviews started great. But then came the time for me to tell them I couldn’t accept a full-time position, and I asked if they would consider part-time. They took an entire month to get me an answer, and after that month, the answer was no. I was bummed, but I understood. At the same time, I currently had an 80% work situation, and I wasn’t about to give that up. So I told them thanks anyway, but I would be walking away.
Two days later, on a Sunday, I got another email saying that actually, the leadership team had met and they’d like to move forward after all. Fast forward to now, I have just finished 2 months at this new job! They gave me my exact same schedule with Fridays off, for much higher pay. I like my boss and my team much more than my previous company. And I am finally working on a neuroscience account, something I’d been begging my last company for.
So far, so good. And the best part? This new company already told me they use freelancers, and so I know that at any time, I can shift to freelance status if I still want to (I could do that anyway, it would just be a lot nicer of a transition to start with a company I’m already working for on projects that I’m already familiar with).
So, there we have it. Life is funny – but here we are!
Other miscellaneous updates: lots of experiments
It’s officially been a year now of working part-time and having Fridays off. In that time, I’ve gotten MUCH more comfortable with having Fridays off. I finally have a nice routine. Basically, it’s my “me day”. I do my hospice volunteering regularly at the nursing home in the mornings. Then, I have the afternoons to spend however I want. Sometimes I go on a hike (or do a different kind of exercise, like trail running with Mr. Dink), or I have writing and/or blog time, or maybe I leave early for weekend travel.
I’ve also continued to run experiments based on my FFL (financial freedom list) and plan to continue. And I’ve gained lots of valuable insights from these experiments! First of all, I’ve learned that singing is really important to me, way more than I thought it was. I joined a hospice singing group and have been catapulted back to the happiness of childhood. Because of the success of this particular experiment, I’m actually considering joining another singing group!
But, I’ve also learned from doing experiments that I can’t do it all, and that there has to be some give and take with my time. I have to prioritize some things over others. For example, I’ve been really wanting to join my local writer’s group. The timing is not ideal for me – they meet twice a month, from 6:30-8:30, and you have to attend in order to sign up to have your pieces read/critiqued. I finally took the leap and went to one of the sessions during the 2-week period I took off between jobs in April, because I really wanted to see how it felt for me. I did a LOT of reflection after the fact, and while joining a writing group is something that is important to me, I decided it wouldn’t be a priority in the short term. Instead of letting it feel like a failure, I allowed it to be a learning experience. I realized that I can’t have everything I want to do be a priority, or else I’d be giving less than 100% to some things, which I didn’t want to do. As much as we want to, we can’t do it all (or at least, I can’t). I can be ok with letting the writing group fade to the background for now, knowing that if my priorities shift in the future, I can always go back (or try to find another writing group).
And finally, another experiment that is on my list is trying to incorporate volleyball back into my life. I had to stop playing in 2016 due to knee injuries, which was a really painful experience. People in my life used to say that I should try coaching, but I always felt sad when I thought about it because I couldn’t imagine not playing. But now, almost 10 years later, I feel differently. I feel like I could get involved in the sport again, in other ways. I’m planning to reach out to the assistant coach of the college team (who I used to play recreationally with) in the summer in anticipation of trying to help out/volunteer my time during the fall season. We’ll see where that experiment goes!
Closing thoughts
I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least acknowledge what is going on in the world. These are difficult times, mostly (for me, at least) due to all the uncertainty. As scary as it is, I’m doing relatively ok when it comes to my mindset around my investments and the wild ride that is the stock market right now. This is probably mostly due to my privilege, but I also credit the fact that my early days in the FIRE community were spent reading almost exclusively the blogs of Mrs. Frugalwoods and JL Collins, and I follow the Simple Path. Even though I’ve been doing ok, I’m not going to lie, I was slightly relieved when I saw this recent post from JL. Because really the only time I have doubted myself when it comes to my money strategy was when I wondered how JL was feeling. And his recent post made me feel like I was exhaling for the first time in weeks.
Because really the main emotion I have been feeling these past few months is the one that lives in my gut when I feel uncertain. The feeling I have in my body when I think of the current state of our world is the same feeling I have when I think about a big stock market dip. And yet, I stay the course. I’ve learned enough to come to the conclusion that I want to be on the roller coaster, and I’m not getting off. I’m here for the long game. And with that, comes uncertainty. It’s part of life. It’s not an excuse by any means for how things are, but it’s a way I navigate despite the conditions that surround us.
I’m less scared of the unknown now, which has been huge. I wouldn’t be able to be living this life I’m living now if I was still scared of the unknown. I wouldn’t be doing any of the experiments I mentioned above, let alone experiencing success. And for 100% certainty, I definitely wouldn’t be aiming to live the life of the 3rd brother in the parable I described above if I was letting my fear of the unknown stop me.
Is there anything stopping you from running experiments to start living your best life now? What has been going on in your life lately? I would love to hear any updates you want to share, either in the comments or privately at [email protected]