Five Cents Ten Cents

Posted: 30 Nov 2008 02:10 AM CST

What would you do every day if you were financially free?

Live a life of leisure?

Do whatever you want with your time?

Go anywhere, do anything, be anyone?

Your financial freedom lifestyle
Financial freedom is both a journey and a destination. It is a journey in that each decision we make concerning what we eat, how we live, what do we do to earn a living contributes to how we travel along the path towards financial freedom where you passive income exceeds your lifestyle expenses. It is a destination in that when your investible savings generates an income that covers your living expenses, you have reached your goal.

Let’s consider what actually happens when you reach financial freedom. When you don’t have to work or when you really can do ANYTHING with your time since you’ve escaped the time-money trade-off.

It’s one thing to imagine not having to go to work and not having to follow a routine but it’s another to actually try it out. Having read Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek where he shares the concept of mini-retirements, I tried out his concept in real life by making use of the accumulated leave that I had when I switched employers. After my last working day in my previous organisation and while serving my 1 mth notice using my leave, I embarked on my “mini-retirement” in living a lifestyle that didn’t involve having to go to work.

Not going to work (but going to the library)
After staying at home for the first couple of days and helping out with the care of my daughter, I realised that this was not the ideal way to practice my mini-retirement as when I reached my goal of financial freedom, my daughter would be old enough to go to school. Thus, I decided to go out each morning and occupy myself from 9 to 5 without having to spend too much money. This was important to test whether I could create that ideal lifestyle when I achieve my goal of being financially free.

As I loved reading and enjoyed quiet places, I decided that the ideal lifestyle in general was one that did involve a routine in going to the public libraries. We human beings are creatures of habit and a lifestyle while you are constantly looking out for ways to avoid boredom (without spending too much money) is actually quite challenging!

Public libraries provided quiet places with air-conditioning that was open from 10.00 a.m. in the mornings to 9.00 p.m. in the evenings. They have proper chairs and tables and even provided free use of electricity sockets to charge one’s notebook. The Central Library near Bugis Junction has perhaps the best facility as you can camp out at their reference sections on the higher floors with your laptop and be engaged via the internet doing your thing. Most public libraries are also located near MRT stations and foodcourts or coffee-shops.

So what was my thing during the 3 week long experiment in having a “mini-retirement” or a trial lifestyle of leisure?

Your thing in the financially free lifestyle
My thing was to have a routine of going to McDonalds’ for their $2 breakfast meal that includes a cofee and a sausage mcmuffin. Don’t eat too much of the stuff though because it’s choc-full of cholestrol; and not very good for your health. This is because the library opens only at 10.00 a.m. and I wanted to get out of the house in the morning to maintain the habit of waking up early.

Just before the clock strikes 10 am, I’ll make a move to the library and deposit my bag at the free lockers available in the Central Library. Next is to park myself at a table and start my laptop going with my M1 mobile broadband that costs me $22.42 a month. Reasonable price as internet access costs $1.80 a hour at all public libraries. $22.42 would only get you 12.4 hours at the libraries terminals or perhaps 4 days surfing if you access the internet for 3 hours a day.

My blog monetisation efforts basically take up half the day as I write blog posts, reply to comments on my blog and surf the internet for financial news, check my stock holdings (which are all underwater thanks to the US credit crisis. This experiment made me realise that I could actually survive on $10 a day for breakfast + lunch + transport if I really get engaged in doing my thing. Of course, you could do many other things which I tried during my “mini-retirement”.

I walked around shopping malls, terminals one to three at Changi Airport and caught movies during weekday afternoons. However, the consumption lifestyle tends to get boring quite fast and my blog monetisation initiatives helped stave boredom away, keep my mind occupied and yet yields a modest amount of income to defray the costs of the mini-retirement.

Lessons from my experiment in the financially free lifestyle
I learnt some useful lessons in planning for my future financially free lifestyle:

1. Develop a productive routine
The most counter-intuitive thing I realised from this experiment in the financially free lifestyle was that having a routine is more important than you think. The key reason for this is that you need something to get you waking up in the morning. Being an employee for the past 13 years has made me a creature of habit. Without a routine or structure to fill your time, you end up being aimless and drifting through each day. The discipline of having to get to a place at a certain time makes it easier for me to wake up and go. It also makes me continue on my breakfast regime which generally consists of rolled oats and coffee (broken up by lapses into sausage mcmuffin at McDonalds).

2. Do something creative and value-adding
Living a life solely dedicated to leisure may sound like heaven to you. But if unless you are in the league of having a couple of million in the bank or yielding income of 6 digits per year, a realistic financially free lifestyle earned in this lifetime still requires one to be mindful of how fast you burn through your income. My series on “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robins and Joe Dominguez really hits home that you can opt for voluntary simplicity and still live a rather fulfilled life. My blog monetisation efforts give me a purpose and allows me to write creatively and generate a bit of pocket money.

The activation of my creative juices through my blog posts and responding to comments by readers help keep me excited about this activity.

3. Take time to be in the present
In our daily life subject to the rigours of the rat-race, we sometimes fail to live in the present. To be fully aware of the wind rustling, the sounds of nature in our urban jungle and even to appreciate little details in life. My experiment has made me more aware of how we rush through life getting from point A to point B without appreciating that the journey is as important as the destination.

What is your ideal financially free lifestyle?
Let Panzer know through the comments and I’ll feature the responses to all in the coming week!

Be well and prosper.