Six or seven months ago I had lunch with one of my good friends. At lunch, she told me that she had a potential job for me at the company where she works. In September when I got back from holiday, she emailed to confirm that I wasn’t working yet – and again in October, and November… Finally, in December the job got the green light and I’ll be starting in a week or so. Hooray!
Along the way I started to lose hope that the job would come through. I had promised myself that once I got to the cut-off threshold of $10k in my “not working savings account” that I’d start looking for something short term just in case this contract didn’t come to fruition. That amount represented about 6 months of non-working expenses – 8 or 9 if I cut back to bare bones. For whatever reason, $10,000 is a kind of magic safety number for me. So at the beginning of September, I was sitting pretty at around $25,000.
Then I bought a new vehicle. Then I kind of lost a bit of control around Christmas buying stuff like makeup, a fitbit (best self-Xmas present ever BTW and first time I’ve actually lost weight over the holidays), new luggage for a cruise in February since I’m too cheap to pay for checked baggage…
About a month ago, little things started to bug me. The sound of the furnace kicking on every half hour, the gas mileage indicator on the new vehicle, that crazy triple mortgage payment in December, the stock market (ok, that was a big thing)… I started hoarding groceries again in preparation for an apocalypse…
Right before Christmas, I got another contract offer from someone else I used to work with where I could earn about 2-3 times what my friend’s job pays. (Why does this happen anyway?) Even a couple of years ago, I would have gone for the one that paid the most because it would mean more money earned to save up for more time off.
But now that I know that I’m not really that great at dealing with large amounts of free time, I’m taking the one that I think I’ll do the best at and will satisfy more of my other needs.
Things like:
- Being a good manager
- Working with friends
- More time off regularly throughout the year and a more flexible schedule
- A big mess to clean up and a sense of progress to satisfy that need for challenge and to make a difference
- Greater autonomy – which contrary to Dan Pink’s advice – isn’t always a good thing for people like me who have a hard time with this work-life balance thing
- Better future prospects (a major consideration now that I’m closer to 50 than 40)
Unlike Jacob’s at Early Retirement Extreme’s un-retirement plan, I’m not planning on keeping up a Spartan-ish budget. Sometimes it’s a good thing not to have a reputation to uphold. Saving 50% is a nice round number and I’ll focus a lot more on conscious spending that makes life easier and more fun.
I even made a spending spreadsheet. 
Yay house cleaners again!
