Oh. my. God!
I’m writing this on a Friday in the early afternoon.
It is 1:47 pm.
And you’ll never guess what I’ve been up to now?!?
The crazy thing is that this is the 3rd Friday that I have this feeling!
I wanted to wait until I was sure I was realizing and seeing how well I was fitting in.
I’m switch down to a 80% part-time at work!!!
This is a crazy thing.
I’ve been blogging since this morning 8am. It’s pure happiness!
Mrs MP and the kids
I was afraid that Mrs. MP would think I was off work and ask me all sorts of things (like “By the way honey, I wanted to talk to you about…”, or “Do you have time to pick up MP kid #2 at his activity in an hour?”).
But nope, she acts like it’s a normal work day. She does it right!
Likewise, the MP kids are at school from morning until 3:45pm.
I swear it’s an amazing feeling.
I feel like I’m living a new life.
I told myself that I was going to test it really hard for 6 months to see how it goes. And that at worst, I could always arrange with my employer (to whom I explained that I just wanted to try it out) to go back to 100%.
But how can I tell you…
A taste of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early)
I will never go back!!!
I feel like I am already in early retirement.
The 4 day weeks are flying by, when I only subtracted one day.
And the weekends. Oh boy, the weekends!
Fridays are dedicated to the blog and its related activities. And since I’m at home, I take breaks during which I tidy up a bit here and there, pay the last bills received, scan them. And then, the few chores are done, and I go back to blogging. All day long!
Then comes Saturday. Where I can just enjoy time with my little family. Nothing else to do.
And I’m not talking about Sundays when I’ve completely disconnected from work, and feel like I’ve got a long weekend…
And it’s that feeling every week!
I thought it would fade after the novelty wore off. But no, it’s just an amazing pace of life.
I think I’ve found the perfect balance until full early retirement. And like I told you before, I like my professional job too. As a result, I feel like I’m living a daydream 7 days a week.
I am clearly lucky to have reached such a stage, and am very grateful.
Some questioning about my FIRE plan
This change of pace has allowed me to think again about my transition to a 100% FIRE life.
I still have some concerns about the psychological transition and associated social loneliness that early retirement at 40 can generate.
Especially after experiencing COVID during which I realized the importance of those coffees and other “jeudredis” with coworkers-friends at work.
I think my FIRE model is going to be to lower my work rate crescendo (vs. stop it completely overnight), in order to progressively appropriate these days of freedom.
For example: with this new day entirely at my disposal, I took the opportunity to go to lunch with another entrepreneur (in rental real estate for his part) last Friday. It’s a bit weird, because it feels like I have a new network, but in parallel to my usual professional life.
So here I am, wondering about it. But I’m not going to take it too far: I’ll go step by step, and I’ll see what happens.
The weirdest and “hardest” part of all this is telling myself that it’s OK not to earn 100% of my salary, but only 80%. I say this from the point of view of a frugalist who wants to optimize his income as much as possible.
In order to reduce this feeling of “regret” about not earning the maximum possible money for my FIRE plan, I set a goal to try to make up that 20% through my book and program income. But you can imagine that if I manage to do that some months, a corner of my brain still comes to me and tells me that if I worked at 100% I would earn even more… ^^
As they say, it’s the journey that’s most interesting, not what’s at the end!
Conclusion
Working part-time at 80% is such a great way to live!
If you get the chance to try it out, I can’t recommend it enough!!!
I’m currently experiencing this as a delicious taste of my future early retirement FIRE.
And you, have you always worked 100%? Or have you ever had a taste of part-time work? What about the impact on your FIRE plan in terms of financial and psychological aspects?
