If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that I’m still working away in my 9-5, with plans to downshift to part-time work as I gain more financial freedom. Instead of the traditional path to financial independence (FI), where you hustle your way to more income and grind away in your day job until you have 25x your yearly expenses, I’m taking more of a slow FI path so that I can enjoy life along the way. I’ve designed my days in such a way that I really am enjoying the journey, but there’s still room for improvement. It’s still not perfect. The main thing I daydream about in my 9-5 is having more time. More time to do more of the things I love to do, that make me feel alive. Time, my friends, is the thing I’m saving up all my money for.
So, what got me started down the rabbit hole of this week’s blog topic (enough to write a whole post about it)? Well, as I was falling asleep the other day (does anyone else have some of their best thoughts about life right as they’re about to fall asleep?), I was thinking about my relationship with my sister-in-law. How much it’s changed over time. How we don’t talk as much as we used to. How it feels like we’re growing apart.
But, I realized, we’re not growing apart. Our circumstances have just changed.
Just over ten years ago, my little brother (then a senior in college) started dating a *gasp* freshman who has since become my sister-in-law. When I met her, sure she was sweet and all, but she was 6 years younger than me. I was busy living it up my prime 20-something years, and we didn’t see each other all that often. It was hard to get to know each other in those early days.
Growing up, it was just me and my younger brother. We were (and still are) very close, closer than most siblings I know, and I’m so grateful for that. But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t always wondered what it would be like to also have a sister.
When our relationship first starting growing, when my sister-in-law and I first started talking a lot, just the two of us, was when she lived in Alaska with my brother and I was single living in Atlanta. She was far away from home (Connecticut) for school, and even though she had my brother, she was homesick. In addition, they were living together for the first time. She needed someone to talk to. Me, I was also far away from home (New Hampshire) in Atlanta, still on the hamster wheel and working a job I deep down really didn’t want to do. At the time, I still had no friends in Atlanta (don’t worry, I did end up making a few over time). I was lonely, and my sister-in-law was there. We gave each other our time, and we grew close.
Then, I moved back to Vermont for my “dream job” (spoiler alert: I no longer believe in dream jobs). This move was supposed to make me happy, but surprise surprise, it didn’t. The dream job didn’t end up being the dream job, the man I thought I was going to marry and be with forever left me, and shortly thereafter I found out I needed a substantial knee surgery.
My brother and sister-in-law moved to Vermont right around the same time. They ended up living 25 minutes from me, and my sister-in-law was doing an accelerated teaching program at the University where I worked. We saw each other a lot. She would come over and do homework and spend time with me while I was cooped up with nowhere to go after my surgery. She helped me grocery shop, she helped me get around my house, she got me through. And a least once a week, my brother would come over too and we would all have dinner together. Her and I got even closer.
She was there. She was there because she could be. She was there because circumstance allowed her to be there. She was almost like a guardian angel. Because we were together often, she just happened to be with me when I got the call that I would need a minor surgery on my breast (somehow minor doesn’t feel so minor when it’s on a part of your body that you feel is part of your identity). She went with me to the appointment to see what would need to be done because I couldn’t bear the thought of going alone. She was there for me after my breakup. She was there for it all.
Now, fast forward 6 years, and our circumstances have changed. Her and my brother got married, moved to a different town, and she works a full time teaching job now. I met Mr. Dink, got married, and also moved to a different town. Now, we’re over an hour away from each other. We’re both busy in our full-time jobs. When we see each other, which is about once every 2-3 months (sometimes more), it’s more planned and less spontaneous. More calculated. It’s typically for family gatherings, or for camping trips with our husbands. We don’t get as much alone time anymore, which is where her and I thrive. Where we talk about vulnerable things. For me, the best part of the relationship.
When our circumstances first changed, when it became harder to get together spontaneously, we would talk on the phone. The phone was how we got our alone time. But that has fizzled out over time too, with changing schedules and busy lives. As I was lying in bed, thinking about this topic before I fell asleep, I couldn’t remember the last time I talked to her on the phone.
Sure, I could fix this. I write a lot on this blog about being intentional, whether with spending or with living (or both). I could be more intentional about this situation with my sister-in-law. As I’ve done with other things of importance, I could identify that this is something I value, make it a goal, and then live in alignment with that goal in order to stoke the fire of our relationship. I could be intentional about calling her more often. I could also talk to her about these thoughts, and we could set up a weekly phone date or something of the sort, like I do with my accountability partner.
But the fact is, when it comes right down to it, what I really need is more time. We all have a finite amount of time in our days. In our weeks. In our years. In our lives.
Because I have recognized this since getting off the hamster wheel, I’ve gotten really good at spending all my time intentionally. I know what’s important to me, and what I’m capable of while I’m still working a 9-5. I’ve prioritized making time for exercise, working on this blog, cooking in instead of eating out, catching up with friends when I can, and quality time with my husband every day.
It wasn’t easy. First, I had to figure out what it actually was that was important to me, because I honestly didn’t know. I had been so caught up running in the hamster wheel that I didn’t even recognize what sparked my fire. What I wanted to spend my precious time actually doing. Then, once I knew, it took a lot of time and effort to figure out how to fit these things into my day (and it’s still a work in progress). I had to make tough choices that felt hard at the time, like cutting out social media for awhile. I had to break the habit of reaching for my phone whenever I had a spare minute of my day where I wasn’t working or thinking about work. But I did it, and it was the best decision I ever made.
Knowing how I’m going to spend my time, on the things that bring me true happiness and joy, is one of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself.
But this instance, lying in bed thinking about my evolving relationship with my sister-in-law, reminded me that it’s still not quite enough. I’m still not yet living my best life. I’m getting by, but I still want more time. I want to read every day, which I don’t get to do. I get out for a walk most days, but I want to walk more. I want to hike a mountain in the middle of the week. I want to be able to sit down and talk to a family member on the phone for an hour if that’s what’s calling to me at that moment.
I have a whole list of things, my Financial Freedom List, that I want to do and explore as I gain more time. I want to volunteer more. I want to explore other work passions beyond my 9-5.
It would be so easy to get bogged down in this realization, that I still don’t have enough time. It would be so easy to throw in the towel and give up hope. But instead, I use all these desires as fuel. These desires become the fuel that keeps me going on my path to financial independence, to being able to some day buy my time back.
But these realizations are also why I’ve embraced a slower path to FI. I know it would take me a long time to get to financial independence. I know I could make A LOT more money in my job, but I also know what it would cost. I see my superiors and how much they work. I know what they do on a daily basis, and I don’t want what they have. More money, but more problems and less time. I like what I do. I don’t want to sacrifice my time now. I want to make decent money, that I save on my FI journey, and still have some time in my day to focus on what makes me happy outside of work. I’ve found the right balance, for now.
But I see how much time I’ve carved out for myself in my day, even with a 9-5, and it makes me seriously aware of how much more time I’d have if I went to part time. And again, I use this fact, which could cause me so much sorrow, as motivation for what comes next.
I know I’ll know when it’s time to go down to part time work, or back to freelance. When the days where I’m craving more time with my sister-in-law are coming more and more frequently. When the whisper to do more of other things that pull at my heart strings becomes a loud, resounding shout to the rooftops.
I’m getting close.
When I came back from the trip I took last week, all I wanted to do when I woke up on Monday morning was write, was work on my blog, all day. But I couldn’t. I had to go to my 9-5.
Instead of letting that fact get me down, I used it as my energy. I don’t feel that way all the time (that I want to write all day). I can count on one hand the number of times that’s happened since starting this blog in March 2022. When that feeling starts coming more and more often, I’ll take that as a cue. And, the way life is right now, I do get to work on my blog every day, if I want to. I’ve carved out a whole hour each and every day to work on the blog.
And for now, that’s enough. Because I’m earning money now so I can buy more time later. Time is really what I want. And when it’s right, I can use the money I’ve gained along my journey to financial independence to “buy” myself more time. Since I won’t need to be saving as much money, I can use that fact to gain more time.
Time is the best thing you can buy with your money because it allows you to explore. It allows you to figure out who you really are, what you really want to be doing with your precious time.
But time is also finite. No matter how much more time we can carve out for ourselves in our day, there are still only so many hours in one. So buying your time also allows you to choose. You get to choose how to spend your time.
Choice is powerful. And you shouldn’t make these choices of how to spend your time lightly.
Since embarking on a slow FI path, I am always thinking about how I choose to spend my time.
On one of the shows Mr. Dink and I are watching currently, called Baskets (with Zach Galifianakis), there is a scene where the character Martha is taking care of her mother with dementia. There’s of course a flair of comedy (it’s Zach Galifianakin, after all), but you can also clearly see the toll that it takes to be the caretaker of a person with dementia. It’s not just a full-time job. It’s also an incredible burden and stressor. It’s why caretakers need just as much care as the person they’re helping. But it’s also why I love the show. Because there is beauty in the difficulty. Not everyone can afford the ability to put a loved one in a care facility, and many family members are forced to be caretakers themselves. Mr. Dink and I have talked about this at length. What would happen if one or more of our parents needs a caretaker in their older age? Luckily, they can all afford to get whatever kind of care they need if that’s what they choose, but I don’t know how I’ll feel when and if that time comes. Part of me feels called to be a caretaker for my parent if that’s how the cookie crumbles. Part of me is terrified. But I at least want the choice. And I know that the choice comes with the cost of not only money but also my time. I wouldn’t be able to do it if I had to work a full-time job (or I could, but it would be a disaster, a recipe for burnout). But I know I could do it, if I chose to do it and I had the time.
The FI and slow FI paths give you more time, whether that’s now (slow FI) or later (FI). But maybe more importantly, they give you the choice of how to spend your time. And isn’t that all anyone really wants, anyway?
What is the first thing you would do if you found yourself with an overabundance of free time? What do you think is the best thing money can buy? Let me know in the comments!