It’s really here!
Last year, right before I changed jobs again, I went on a retreat. At this retreat, I had some wonderful creative revelations, and I made a vow to myself. If this new job I was taking couldn’t fit into my slow FI (financial independence) life, it had to go.
But I also decided I’d give this new job, this new company, a fair shot. Based on everything I heard and learned during the interview process, the job seemed promising.
The good news is that, the new job has been going well! On paper.
I still have Fridays off. I’m finally working on a topic I enjoy and that is aligned with my graduate degree. I have a great boss who’s got my back. In fact, I wrote about all of this in more detail in my last post, where I reflected on two years of part-time work.
And yet… Even though I found the “perfect” job I’d been looking for all this time, it still wasn’t enough. Can you relate?
I told myself (and I’m sure I’ve written about this on the blog before) that I’d just know when the time was right. Well folks, that time is here.
Despite all the good there is about this job, my soul still feels completely stifled. I hate feeling like I’m chained to my desk from 9-5, even if it is just for 4 days a week. There are many days where I don’t have a whole lot to do, and due to the nature of my work and the company structure, I just have to sit there and wait. Wait for an urgent request to come in from the client. Wait for someone to figure out what to give me to work on with my unclaimed capacity. And, although I can admit this is a very privileged problem to have, it is slowly destroying my soul.
Meanwhile, as I wrote about a bit in my last post, I continue to deepen my relationship with my community. And it’s beautiful. To put it simply, I want more.
A big realization came when, on one of my Fridays off, I left the house at 9 am and didn’t get home until 9 pm. When I walked in the door that night, Mr. Dink said “you must be exhausted.” I said that I was, but that it was so worth it. I spent the entire day doing things that I chose, that lit me up, that I wanted to be doing. And I had an epiphany that night as I lay in bed. I had already started making plans to scale back, and I realized why now was the time: I was DONE trying to jam everything I wanted to do outside of work into 1 day. It was exhausting. I wanted to be able to spread that jam-packed Friday out over the entire week. Plus, there was even more stuff I wanted to be able to fit in, so many more avenues to explore and experiments to live out, that I just couldn’t make work with only 1 day off.
That realization has been unsettling, to say the least. Even as I started to develop a well-thought-out plan to downshift even more, I still felt so much unease. When I started to really consider this downshift and come up with a plan right before the Christmas holiday, I told Mr. Dink. He’s always been in the know about my slow FI life and dreams, but he told me he thought it was the best and most thought-out plan he’d heard me speak about yet. I was ready.
But even with all the planning, even with the knowing deep in my soul that this was the right thing, it’s still been completely freaking me out. Have you ever heard the saying that goes something like “everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear”? That’s how I felt. Even though I knew it would all be ok, that I wouldn’t run out of money, that all would be well, I was still scared. Because of the uncertainty, because of rising healthcare costs, because…everything feels scary. But, my friends, I did it anyway.
So what did I do?
I’m going to share all the details with you because let’s be honest: 1) this is the community that wants to know these things (or at least I did when I was gobbling up personal finance/financial independence content); and 2) I mostly made this whole thing up and had no one to model it for me, so I was flying by the seat of my pants (while also preparing mentally up the wazoo). If my sharing all the details helps inspire even just 1 person, that’s so worth it!
Originally, the plan was to shift to freelance/contract status, but I wanted to do it for my current company (because things had been going so well). My plan was to tell my boss that I needed to reduce my hours, and then to see what they said/what options they’d give me.
Important sidenote: for the 3+ months leading up to that first conversation with my boss, I did two major things. First, I conducted ALL the research I possibly could on healthcare options (because I carry the healthcare for our household). For our situation, that included researching COBRA options and Vermont ACA options. And second, I networked like crazy. I’m the type of person who always needs at least 1 backup plan (but more like 10). I contacted previous bosses, prior colleagues, recruiters I’d worked with in the past, etc. to catch up and let them all know I was planning to go freelance in Q2 of 2026 and to inquire about whether they used freelancers/had any use for my services. That ended up being super helpful for a million reasons, most important of which was to give me a sense of what I could expect if my first choice didn’t work out, aka if my company told me NO THANKS.
Of course the initial conversation with a boss never goes to plan, so I’m glad I was as prepared as possible (aka, I had been thinking through this conversation for 3+ months). Although I had planned to initiate the conversation in my own way, the universe had other plans. Things shifted a little at work, and the higher-ups wanted me to cover for someone who was going on leave, so I was forced to bring the topic up a week sooner than I’d planned. No problem.
I led with authenticity and vulnerability. I told my boss that, because things were shifting, I needed to tell her something. I said that for personal reasons, I needed to reduce my hours coming up in April (I intentionally did not lead with how many hours I wanted). I said that I assumed I could not remain an employee, but I was hoping I could remain with them as a contractor, and I was curious to hear if they thought that was something that could work.
My boss was great about it all (which I was expecting). She was obviously disappointed but told me how glad she was that I told her (I also gave them a months notice, because I wanted time to negotiate if needed. This ended up being huge and if I had to do it again, I may have given even more notice). She asked a few follow-up questions like how many hours did I anticipate (10-15) and what I was thinking about my schedule (Tues/Wed with flexibility to work the hours across Monday-Thursday some weeks). Then, she had me put it in an email, which she then forwarded to her boss.
Next up, I had a meeting with my boss’s boss. She was on vacation, so this didn’t happen until the next week! (Again, biggest learning, these things take time!). I had met my boss’s boss once, during my interview with the company, and remembered her as being incredibly kind, so I was a little less nervous going into it than I think I would have been otherwise. I learned that the purpose of that meeting was to basically give her all the same answers I told my boss, so she could take it to the leadership team. I did NOT expect her to ask about rates. Luckily, I was prepared. I had already run some numbers and scenarios and had decided that $150 per hour was the absolute minimum I was willing to accept.
By the end of the conversation, I was feeling great about it all, but before we signed off, she threw the wrench in. She said something like “Oh! And before I forget, one more thing. We were thinking that $100 per hour would be perfect for you – that would give you $1500 per week.” I’m sure she could see the shock on my face. I took a breath, waited a beat, and then very calmly replied that I had ALSO been thinking, and that $150 would need to be my absolute minimum based on what I bring to the table. She was silent for A LONG TIME. Like, to the point where I thought maybe her camera had frozen. But then, out of no where, she just said “Ok! We’ll see what we can do.”
I tell you, friends, I have been negotiating for what feels like awhile at this point, and things never cease to surprise me. But I will say, I had never felt so pumped and proud of myself. I also learned that the negotiating advice “state your terms and then SHUT UP” really is great advice.
Next up, the conversation with my boss’s boss switched over to Teams. She proceeded to send me live updates as she heard back from the leadership team and from HR. In addition to telling me that $120 would be the max they could pay me per hour as a contractor, they were also all of a sudden trying to get me to stay on as an employee! This was a curveball I absolutely did not expect but in hindsight maybe should have (after all, this whole plan pretty much banked on the fact that I was a valued employee at this company). She gave me a breakdown of each scenario, contractor vs employee. She listed out the pros for staying an employee, like that I could keep my work computer, I could still record admin time, I could keep my same working processes, etc (all things I knew). But the sticking point for me was that I’d lose my employer-sponsored healthcare.
I responded that if healthcare was not on the table, I absolutely could not consider staying an employee.
Next up was an “emergency meeting” with HR for me to get a better idea of all my options. The HR representative went through her usual list of things, asking me about my situation (I gave very vague details) and trying to steer me toward FMLA. Then, she literally told me on the phone that they would do whatever they could to keep me as an employee (cue the mind-blown emoji). I again reiterated that staying was not a possibility without healthcare, and she told me that healthcare was absolutely on the table (cue a million mind-blown emojis). I think (hope?) I did a good job of not showing what I was feeling, which was basically like my jaw was hitting the floor.
Sure enough, when I received her report via email the next day, it included the fact that I could keep my healthcare. For the same price per paycheck I had been paying. I had definitely dreamed about this happening, but not for awhile, and I never thought it would.
Mr. Dink and I discussed this newfound twist at length. We ran the numbers. It ended up being basically a wash between me going to contract status, making $120 per hour, and paying for healthcare through the state of Vermont (with the plan we wanted, which was pricey), and me choosing to stay an employee now that healthcare was on the table.
I knew pretty much immediately in my heart what I wanted to do. I wanted to at least try out staying an employee. I remembered back to when I first dreamed up downshifting to part-time work. The company where I worked at that time would let you keep healthcare as long as you worked 24 hours a week. At the time, that seemed pretty great. I never dreamed I could get it for 15 hours.
So, here we are! For the past 4 months, I have been working 15 hours a week! I will share a more thorough update later on, but so far, it’s been going relatively well.
I still sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t have just gone to contract status, but I remind myself that that’s always still an option. For now, I love maintaining my working relationship with my boss and still being a part of a team/the company. I could definitely leave the performance reviews, but for now, the pros outweigh the cons.
What about the money?
I knew that the money-mindset side of things would be the biggest mental hurdle I’d have to get through, and so far, that has indeed been the case.
I decided to maintain the company’s 401k match of 6%, which I was able to keep by staying an employee. But that is currently the only saving I am doing. As a reminder, I have reached Coast FI as well as Flamingo FI, so the idea is that even if I don’t save and invest another dollar, my currently invested funds will grow in the background to be able to support me upon retirement age.
I will admit it was hard at first, but it is getting much better. It has been hard for me not to worry, hard for me to shake that unease I get when I think about whether I should still be saving more, especially in this economy. What has helped has been to keep reminding myself that this was an intentional, thought-out choice that I made, and I can change my mind anytime! Should I need to dip into cash savings a little bit? Fine. It’s all part of the plan. This is just my next experiment, and I can adjust anytime, just as I’ve been making small adjustments all along on this slow FI journey.
Something else I have been doing that is helping and keeping me engaged with my money but in a fun, less-stressful way: I have been tracking my spending more than I have in a long time. For starters, and most simply, I made note of where my checking account was at the start of this change (so far, it hasn’t changed at all; if anything, it’s gone up). For an added layer of peace of mind, I’ve also started tracking our grocery, alcohol, and eating out spending much more closely than I used to. As I hoped, it’s actually been fun rather than stressful! It’s been reassuring, and I will take all the reassurance I can get right now.
What’s next?
The best decision I made after making this leap in my working life was to not rush into anything. I intentionally made it a goal not to take on anything new in my schedule for the remainder of the summer. After a week or two in the honeymoon phase, I started to get a little restless. I remedied that restlessness by 1) journaling more so that I could better reflect on this time, and 2) being a little more intentional with my days off. I still leave plenty of time for rest and flexibility, but I try to plan at least one thing every day or make some sort of plan for the day. That has helped with my anxiety. I continue to have plenty of ideas for how to spend my time and what things I want to add to my plate, but I haven’t acted yet. It’s been great to just let myself be.
Closing thoughts
I’m so glad I did it. I’m so glad I took the leap despite the unease.
Back when I was still in the planning stages of this downshift, after I had shared my plans with Mr. Dink, I overheard him telling his dad (who he talks to every Sunday) about my plan, and I had the pleasure of hearing his response. It made my day. He said “it may be spooky at first, but it’ll end up being the best decision she’s ever made.”
And there it was – I had a new word for everything I was feeling. Spooked. Just like I felt spooked on Halloween as a kid, but I still went trick-or-treating. Just like I always felt spooked watching horror movies, but I watched them anyway. We can be spooked and still move forward. We can be super fearful and still do the thing anyway. Everything you really want in life may actually be on the other side of fear after all…
How about you? What stage of your journey are you in these days? What fears are holding you back? Feel free to drop me a comment below, or you can reach out to me personally at mrs@dinksonabus.com. I’d love to hear from you!
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