I’ve been unemployed for nearly six months. Tomorrow marks the six month anniversary of quitting my last job and experiencing my first career break.
Being able to control my time from morning to night has been an incredible experience. It’s also been a big responsibility.
This has been the first time in my life in over a decade where I have absolutely no responsibilities. So I wanted to record my thoughts about the experience.
This six months has been total freedom. And I want to do what I can to live this experience again in the future.
Why Did I Do It?
There are a few reasons why I decided to quit my job. But I should explain more about myself and where I’ve come from before I explain why.
My Career
Over the last 7 years I’ve been working full-time in a variety of different roles, from data entry, to payroll processing, and most recently, software training and consulting. This helped me to develop a large skill set, which has given me a lot of tools I can use to support myself both professionally and in my personal life: customer service, tech skills, process improvement, and strategy to name a few.
I’ve always had the desire to use my skills to do something more than just my job. For many reasons, that hasn’t happened. Maybe I didn’t want it enough.
Or maybe I hadn’t created the right environment for that side of myself to bloom.
The best thing about working a large variety of roles is that it gives you a very diverse range of skills. Your skills make you better at your current role, but also make you much more attractive for future roles. The problem is that by working a full-time job, those skills are primarily put to use directly to support an employer rather than yourself.
There is nothing wrong with a 9-5; I’m not against full-time work. I’m not going to suggest anyone quits their job, and certainly not without a good reason to do so. 9-5 jobs can be hugely beneficial and predictable, which is important for many people. Families with dependents who rely on that salary remove the option to quit a job without other income systems in place.1
I’m also not anti-employer. You use your skill and expertise to trade time for money as part of your employment contract. You require money to engage in society2, so some form of income is essential. And a lot of the time, you benefit further by learning new skills to supplement what you already know.
But despite how well-off you can be as a result of this deal, I still feel as though working a high-intensity, full time role hasn’t fully served my own best interests. The reason boils down to one key concept:
The job you’re working exists because it is profitable to someone else.
Why Businesses Exist
Businesses are created to make profit. Businesses grow in size when the work involved to make that profit grows beyond the capabilities of a single person. If you work for a business, the business will want to provide you with everything you need to perform the required tasks as cheaply and conveniently as possible.
I am not saying “businesses are cheap”. This is simply efficiency at work.
Most businesses hire employees full-time due to the business week being 5 days long. This helps ensure that computers, office space, and anything else provided is utilised as much as possible. From a business standpoint it’s efficient; if you need 5 full time equivalent (or FTE) to complete your business tasks, you’d ideally want to have 5 full-time employees.
It doesn’t make sense financially to hire 10 part-timers to do the same thing that 5 full-timers would do. The additional costs associated with each employee –like laptops, software accounts, desks, office equipment – make this a bad deal for the business. Therefore, businesses aim to minimise this by hiring full-timers where possible.
Many full time jobs have high salaries, especially in roles like consulting. Don’t get me wrong, high salaries are great. But I’m spending all my time working for this salary and saving a high amount of that salary. I would much rather work less, and continue to save the amount I desire.
But simply working less hours has its own host of problems as well.
Reducing Hours in High-Intensity Roles
If you could magically make 20% of your job disappear and take a full day off every week, and all it cost was 20% of your salary, would you do it?
You might be thinking “If I don’t do the work, then it becomes my problem anyway”. And you’d be right. This thought experiment only works if you can actually make 20% of your job disappear.
Dealing with rapidly shifting client interests, job sharing with a colleague, or even just a busy period of work make this untenable. Taking the deal means signing yourself up for the same amount of work for 20% less pay.
This is especially true if you were already working over and above your full time hours; that won’t change if you reduce your contracted hours. Some of that extra work will follow you no matter how many hours you’re contracted for. I’m sure the term “reasonably expected overtime” is universal.
Unfortunately for a lot of people, reducing hours isn’t possible or isn’t practical. It wasn’t practical for me, as there were too many things outside of my control for it to work in my favour.
In the months leading up to my decision to quit, I had thoughts about how I could change the nature of my role.
At one point, I thought I could reduce my hours to four days a week, take a pay cut, and enjoy my extra day off from work… wait, would I be taking a whole day off? How would my clients feel about not being able to contact me on Fridays? I had clients who would contact me every day, so that wasn’t really an option.
I could work less hours a day? But then I’d have the same problem of working extra in the evenings to fit in client meetings or get things done. I imagine clients would’ve been moved around to make it work, but there are always challenges with actually doing this.
The only ultimate change is a reduction in hours on paper only, and a whole lot of lost pay. Ultimately, I realised that it wasn’t the option for me.
This led me to my final realisation: if I wanted to reduce the amount of hours I worked, I had to be in control of those hours. To do that, I could either change the role I was in, or quit my job entirely.
After a lot of deliberation I decided on the last option, quitting my job and taking a much-needed break. I’m lucky that I have the ability to do this, as not everyone can just quit their job without another one lined up. So this begs the question…
How Did I Survive For 6 Months With No Pay?
The first thing I want to mention is how it was possible for me to quit my job and wipe out my primary income source.
Readers of the blog may know that I have spent years learning about Financial Independence. I’ve used the principles of Financial Independence to spend less money than I make, and save and invest the difference.
This allowed me to keep my expenses low and provide some investment income during my time off.
Not only did I have the financial ability to take this break, but I also have confidence in my skill set. I have developed a lucrative set of skills throughout my career that will enable me to take on contract-based work as I see fit.
This period of time was an experiment to see what my ideal life would look like.
Did I achieve this? Somewhat. And I think it took a bit of time for me to do so.
But I’m proud of how I spent this six months as it helped me discover what I really want to do.
My Last Job?
My last job was the best job I’ve had.
I worked as a consultant in software implementations and providing specialist business advice.
On the surface everything seemed great. The work was challenging and engaging. I could see clearly how my work led to positive change in the organisations we worked with. The job was fully remote, aside from a client visit every now and again. The people I worked with were all fantastic and inspiring people. And the pay gave me security and allowed me to effectively plan for my future.
It seems great on the surface… so what was the problem?
I had lost meaning in almost every other area of my life.
Unfortunately I found that my work had begun to take over a larger and larger portion of my life. What started as an innocent bit of extra time in the evenings quickly spiralled into working full weekends to meet client deadlines. This, combined with a larger and larger portfolio of projects, quickly burnt me out, as I had to shift gears between multiple client projects on a daily basis.
The problem wasn’t necessarily the amount of hours worked; it was more what I called bloat, or project bloat – the productivity you lose and the mental fatigue from having too much to do and too many things to worry about all at once.
Constantly changing from one project to next, often multiple times a day, was absolutely exhausting, especially on days where I was the key presenter. This led to bad habits in my personal life, such as poor fitness and escapism through gaming to numb myself after a hard day of work.
I was losing control of my life outside of my work.
Finding FIRE
In 2019 I discovered an online community of people who want to reclaim control of their lives as early as possible. This community is the FIRE movement, and the people in this community aim to achieve Financial Independence to Retire Early from mandatory employment. Depending on a person’s individual circumstances, it’s possible to achieve this feat years or even decades ahead of the usual retirement age.
The FIRE movement gained popularity over the last decade on social media. Thanks to books, blogs, and social media, learning about investing became easier than ever for the average person.
This blog is my attempt to articulate my thoughts on FIRE.
I have been working towards Financial Independence for the last five years. While on this path, I have tried to reduce expenses down to only intentional purchases where possible. During my time off work, this progress has slowed, but I haven’t withdrawn money from my investments.
Unfortunately, FIRE isn’t without its downsides. It takes a massive amount of sacrifice in both time and money to reach the ultimate goal of financial freedom.
By focusing so adamantly on this over the last few years, my focus was on a future I could not imagine. My efforts also achieved nothing in my current life.
When working towards FIRE, it’s easy to neglect the present self to provide for your future self.
I fell into that trap. And it took quitting my job for me to escape and figure that out.
By quitting my job I applied the principles of FIRE in my life, right now, to construct the life I want to live today.
The North Star
Late last year I encountered some big challenges in my role, and it felt like things weren’t getting any better.
After many long hours and weekends lost I asked myself “what am I working so hard for?”. If I’m spending all of my waking hours doing, thinking, or worrying about work, what is this all leading towards? Surely there’s a reason why I’m doing this, right?
Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer the question. I didn’t know why I was working as much as I was.
While I was working towards FIRE, this felt too much like the “sacrifice” that we were supposed to avoid on the path to reaching it.
It took me 3 months of self-reflection to figure out what my North Star was, and then a little while longer to realise that I had already achieved it. At least in theory.
The concepts from the FIRE community helped me plan a lifestyle that worked for me. The traditional route to Financial Independence is to drop work entirely once I hit my “number”. But I’d rather create a lifestyle with a healthy and sustainable amount of work that I choose, after creating a small portfolio to cover some expenses.
I’m happy to continue working, but want to do so on my own terms. As I mentioned earlier, I loved the work I was doing in my own job.
What I didn’t love was the bloat, additional hours, and the lack of control I had on a day to day basis.
Before quitting my job to begin this process, I saved up a sizeable amount of money that could sustain me for much longer than I planned to be out of work.
That gave me time to try new things, do what I want to do, and potentially earn some money along the way.
One of the things I’m trying is writing this blog and being more active on social media. I want to record my journey, and see if it resonates with or helps anyone else on their own.
So that’s how I’ve been able to take a gamble and take this time off. But what exactly am I working towards by doing this?
What Is My Goal?
I have a few major goals that I have set for myself. I plan to maintain these throughout my life in whatever way I can.
Time Sovereignty
Earlier, I mentioned finding my North Star – the big goals I’m working towards. I realised that I had to first focus on what I didn’t want – an anti-vision of what I wanted for my life. While working full time, I was experiencing a feeling of powerlessness over not having control of my life.
I wanted control of my time back. All of it.
I wanted total sovereignty over my time. And I knew I couldn’t do that while I was working full-time. So, I pulled the plug.
My goal now is to construct a lifestyle that I am proud of, and then introduce working into that lifestyle in a sustainable way. I’m focusing on building positive habits like journaling and exercise, and looking to continue to improve myself in ways that aren’t tied to the job I work. Over the last few months, I’ve achieved this in a manner I’m satisfied with for now.
I realised that what I’ve done wasn’t possible for me by keeping a full-time job. Even a job that I was good at. Even a job that made me happy. And even if it helped lots of people.
I had to walk away before I could rebuild the life I wanted to live from the ground up. Maybe some people can figure this out while they’re working, but for me it was a struggle.
Once I finished my last day of work, I quickly realised that I needed something else.
I needed to rest.
After my final day, I felt a weight lift from me and my foggy, muddled mind slowly began to clear. In the first time in a long time, I felt truly unburdened.
Resting helped me avoid rushing into something new too quickly, which would defeat the purpose of my break. But after a while I began to experience an itch and a desire to start something new.
Choosing Work I Love
I am still working out all the details of my new lifestyle, and I’m glad I have the space to do it.
For now, I’m working on myself and enjoying having control of my time. That is my form of independence. And right now I think it’s a good option for me.
This experience taught me that I wanted the power to choose what I work on, and when I work on it.
Maybe I’ll work 4 days of paid work a week. Maybe I’ll just work one, and use the rest of my time on creative pursuits (like this blog).
My focus right now is finding things I enjoy doing that aren’t a job, and then fit work in around those things, rather than approaching it the other way around.
As far as work itself goes, I’m not worried at all. As I mentioned earlier, I am confident in my skill set, so finding work shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.
Whatever I choose to do, I have confidence in finding work and figuring out how much work I want to do.
Closing
Sharing this has helped me understand what I’ve achieved so far and where I go to next. I have a long way to go before I figure everything out, but this is the first step of many.
I hope you enjoyed reading this one. As always I will continue writing about my journey with articles every Tuesday and Friday.
If you would like to read more, you can read more posts, and you can follow me on X @ScottOnFire.