people in our parents’ generation, when they hear about our plan, love to say, “but won’t you be bored? how will you spend your time?” this question undoubtedly comes from a place of love and concern, but the people who ask this clearly don’t know us very well. we are never lacking for things to do, and that’s why we want more time to do things that are priorities to us, and less time (or no time) to do things that are priorities to our employers.
here is the start of our life list for our next chapter, almost none of which cost very much:
- get punk rock haircuts
- have a jazz funeral for our careers in new orleans
- ride our bikes to the store instead of driving
- ski 100 days in a season
- improve our rock climbing skills, and maybe climb a big wall
- hike the john muir trail, and maybe the full pacific crest trail
- trek in the alps
- drive to the tip of south america
- spend a summer in alaska
- go to both weekends of coachella
- go to glastonbury
- go to central casting and get cast as extras
- preserve more of the food we get from the farmers market
- volunteer for a local csa, in exchange for produce
- visit all 50 u.s. states
- travel across asia
- learn more languages
- volunteer for local orgs
- be activists
- climb all the tall mountains in our state
- read more books
- finish proust
- sew more of our clothes
- have a garden
- make more time for yoga
- make more time for family
- see our friends more
- sleep in
- spend days away from screens
- camp for weeks at a time
- visit places threatened by climate change, before they’re gone
- have two-hour lunches
- ride trains all around the country
- downsize our home
- make things instead of buying them
-onl
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Categories: goals
I laughed out loud at “get punk rock haircuts.” Can’t wait to see that post! To be honest, the most bananas thing on your list is to go to both weekends of Coachella… exhausting is an understatement.
I’m *very* new to the whole concept of financial independence, but for the last month or so I’ve been reading The Books and devouring All The Blogs while I get my arms around my own values, current spending, and the life changes that I might be ready to make. And I gotta say, ONL is my absolute favorite. I love your thoughtful posts and that you manage to stay kind, honest and non-judgmental through so many different aspects of your experience. After bopping around the site randomly & through links I finally decided to just start from the beginning. And the chance to be the only comment on a post finally got me to stop lurking ;)
Thanks for all the hard work on this site — having been a blogger in a past life, I know how much effort goes into even a single post, and just want you to know how much your readers (well, at least *this* reader) appreciate it. I hope it keeps bringing you joy to write and share with us, so that you’ll keep doing it even after you retire! <3
Oh we’re serious about those haircuts, though! Or at least I am. ;-) And yeah, might have been a little overly ambitious on both Coachella weekends. Next year we’re just going to weekend 2, and we’ll see if we still crave doing both. Ha.
Thanks so much for your nice note about the blog — you totally made my day. :-) And yeah, it’s definitely a lot of work, but so worth it because of the incredible community that’s grown here — how else would we get to “meet” people like you and learn about where you are in your journey?? :-)
I agree this is my favorite FI blog (actually the only one regularly read because it is the best) I also love the non judgemental attitude and the pictures. I love photograhpy too and your site has inspired me to start posting on instant gram to capture my life (I really don’t care of anyone looks just want an easy way to remeber all the great things I am lucky enough to do) I want to get a phone with a better camera now (have a nice camera but is harder to post)
Thanks for that! ;-) Such a nice, meaningful compliment. I love that I’ve inspired you to start Instagramming — sharing photos is one of my favorite things! (And I’m STOKED that soon we get to start sharing pics of our actual region!)
Newish reader here, love your work. I’d say that by the looks of your recent Instagram post, you’re well on your way to conquering your list! If you ever find yourself back on that Orcas Island ferry from last fall, drop me a line.
Just curious if anything on the list has changed in the short time since you’ve retired. Can we expect a punk rock haircut in the near future?!
Thank you! And we are indeed on our way with the list. ;-) I’ll let you know if we’re back on Orcas, and keep your eyes peeled on the haircut front. Hahaha
I love this list — it looks a lot like my husband and I’s retirement list! We lived in Alaska for three years, so if you ever go (you should!) and want tips, I love talking the ear off of anyone who will listen — its probably just about my favorite place in the world.
That’s so cool! Turns out that we didn’t get to a whole lot of these things in year 1 (“only” Taiwan, Mexico and France — haha), but we have plenty of time. :-)