FIRE financial independence. Choose slow FI for a more enjoyable, balanced path to freedom by working part-time + alternative income streams.
I used to write about my mini-retirement to document the time away from jobbing.
Although that journey came to an abrupt end in December 2016, I now have the opportunity to document my slow FIRE financial independence journey.
Instead of grinding at a job I can’t stand for the next 10 years and saving as much as possible, I am choosing to work a more flexible job to enjoy more time now. But I’m still pursuing financial independence.
Before I describe what it’s like to work part-time, let’s dive into the concept of Slow FI.
FIRE Financial Independence – What is Slow FI?
Typically, a financially independent person is someone who saved up 25 times their expenses, or they built income streams up that cover expenses.
Therefore, achieving financial independence usually requires a high savings rate for a number for years.
But what if you can’t stomach that?
What if even 10 years at a monotonous, soul-crushing job is too much?
Wouldn’t it would be better to take a slower, more enjoyable path to freedom as opposed to a miserable path at a job you dread 5 days per week?
Fortunately, there is an alternative. It’s called Slow FI (slow FIRE financial independence).
Slow FI involves working a less stressful job or part-time job to gain a more enjoyable, more balanced path to financial independence.
For example, an individual who is pursuing slow FI will choose Barista FIRE or work a high paying part-time job instead of working at a full-time job they hate. Rather than save 60% of their income and achieve freedom in 10 years, they may achieve it in 20 years while working only 3 days per week.
Around the end of 2019, I resigned from my full-time job and picked up a part-time job to begin my slow FI journey. Here is what my experience has been like so far:
Slow FIRE Financial Independence Update: Working Part-time is Fucking Fantastic!
It’s like having weekends every other day or two.
I have more time for laundry and cooking at home. My fridge is always packed with groceries. And the overall pace of life has swung back in my direction.
Of course, I know it’s not for everyone, and that some people enjoy the structure provided by their 9 to 5. To each their own.
In my case, though, I feel like I’m in more control of my life. It’s a lot easier to grind out a two-day week lol.
Savings are funded by Income Streams
Fortunately I’ve built up a few income streams to help me save money: blogging & dividend investing. I would recommend avoiding debt and building income streams to anyone considering a part-time job. I’m not perfectly debt free yet, but I’m getting close. That will provide a boost of income when it happens.
Once that happens, I can direct all attention to the dividend business. Ideally, I want dividend income to be the leading income stream. I want it to cover all my expenses.
Based on that goal, all income from income streams is reinvested back into the dividend business: dividends, blog income, and savings.
At least I am still saving and increasing my dividend income while working part-time, even if it’s at a slower pace.
If it’s possible to consistently grow the dividend portfolio for years while maintaining a part-time job, then part-time jobbing may be forever.
The flexible schedule is perfect. If dividend income and blog income are still growing, there will be a crossover point at which my dividend income exceeds my expenses. It might take longer, but the journey will be more enjoyable. That’s the main benefit of slow FIRE financial independence.
FIRE Financial Independence Update: Working Part-Time feels the same as my Mini-Retirement—But Money is still coming in…
The strangest thing about working part-time is how much it feels like my year off.
Similar to my mini-retirement, work revolves around my life instead of the other way around.
I may have a stretch of days off in a row that allows me to take a small road trip, or I can hit up a coffee shop mid week to work on the blog. I almost have the same freedom.
Even with this freedom, I keep worrying that I’m putting myself in a bad financial situation. But then another payday happens and I realize this is like my year off but with money coming in.
Even if my hours dip and less money is coming in, I still have a baseline income that will allow me to survive. I may just need to temporarily lower my spending.
New stuff comes up because you’re available
I anticipate the majority of my mini-retirement time will be spent on blogging. However, in both cases now, random stuff comes up because you’re available.
You wake up planning to blog or whatever, but end up doing something completely unexpected.
The point is that you have to be really focussed on what you’re doing if you want to get anything done. You won’t really have that much more time unless you make more time.
Life becomes normal again quickly, because you adapt to having 3 or 4 days off per week. All of a sudden, two of the days become recreational, which is ok lol, unless you’re trying to build a business.
I considered trading again for income
Because of my experience watching the markets and working as a stock broker, I attempted day trading for income for 4 months during my year off.
Although I was successful overall during my days as a trader, it made me realize I enjoy blogging and dividend investing more.
But to tell you the truth, I considered it as an option to earn income again recently. A friend of mine recently began trading, and he’s been successful, which instantly reminded me of my days as a trader.
You know what, though, the main problem was the pressure to earn all my income from trading. That was hard to do considering the amount I was trading with and because of the scalping style I used. But if it’s a 4th income stream, after a part-time job, blogging, and dividend investing, does it make sense?
The answer is still no. After pondering this briefly, I believe in keeping the focus narrow to become an expert, and on earning income from work you enjoy. So for the time being, I will keep my focus on my part-time job, blogging, and on dividend investing.
I’m more well rested
Since I work less days per week, I get to sleep in more.
In addition, my schedule is not typical hours when I do work either, so I can usually sleep in on those days too.
It’s been great so far because I’ve been able to avoid feeling completely drained. I have more energy overall.
But it is possible to form bad habits with this type of freedom. Habits such as sleeping in too late and staying up too late.
In turn, I am still setting an alarm clock for a somewhat reasonable hour to maintain some consistency.
I’m struggling to develop a system
Similar to what I experienced during my year off, I am struggling to develop a system.
A typical nine to five job provides a general structure for life—work 5 days a week and do what you want on the weekends.
But when your schedule fluctuates, and you also value time for relaxation and enjoyment, it can be difficult to find a system that works.
I am finding that it’s challenging to blog more on the additional days off, because more days are used for rest and for fun.
There have been times with this blog that I would’ve just salivated at this opportunity. I would’ve published a new blog post per day. But now I’m trying to be more methodical about it. I’m putting more work into each post, and I’m focussed on the behind-the-scenes work as well.
In short, I must develop a system to earn more money from blogging and to build this blog’s audience up while I’m still working part-time. If I don’t make significant progress with either income or subscription/website traffic growth over the next 6 months to a year, I will go back to full-time or obtain a 2nd job to build the dividend business as fast as possible.
I’m slightly less of a recluse
Again, similar to my year off, I’m more social again.
And again, I know everyone is different, but I actually want to get out of the house and do more with a part-time job.
Whereas with a full-time job, I would find that I was too tired to want to go out a lot of the time. Maybe that’s due to poor health lol, or because I always spent 1 day per weekend on the blog. Since I needed one day to rest and relax and 1 day for blogging, I never wanted to do anything.
However, with a part-time job, it’s possible that I have 3 or even 4 days off. That’s 1 day for rest, 1 (or more) day(s) for doing shit, and 2 days for blogging.
Just the other day, I had the chance to go out to the boons again. Since I had a more open week, I took the opportunity and had the chance to going kayaking.
This will probably be the best month for the blog ever
Although I haven’t been discussing my blog numbers for a while, I will say this—even my bad months are better than the best months in previous years.
Page views have been higher than ever all year, Google Adsense income is higher than ever, and e-mail subscriptions are higher and are increasing more rapidly than ever. Especially since I decided to switch to part-time.
Anyways, it’s looking like this month could be the best month of all time for page views. I have more time off than usual, and page views have already surpassed last year’s mark by a long shot.
In total, this blog has received overall 110,000 page views all time now. The blog saw a good run near the beginning of my year off. However, there was a bit of a drop off when I initially went back to work. Since then, traffic has been slowly increasing, basically since I began publishing dividend income updates.
My goal is to work hard enough on this blog to make it a sustainable side income over the next 6 to 12 months. I really want to see what I can do.
My part-time job is the perfect situation to test this, and I’m earning more than ever now (per hour), but it does have its tradeoffs. This situation is a dream situation for me to spend time on blogging, though. I am really hoping I can make it work out financially.
I don’t like investing less
Inconsistent income always feels like you’re in a fight, even if you’re earning more.
Budgeting becomes more of a challenge when you don’t know how much you will be earning in a month.
As such, I have been investing less into the long term portfolio since I began working part-time.
I am building more cash up, and I am being more cautious with money now.
One tradeoff I’ve realized is that I don’t take kindly to investing less.
My job at the bank was great for forcing savings through their stock sharing plan.
There was always another $12 of annual dividend income per month from investing into their stock sharing plan.
But other than my pension, which I probably won’t share too much about on this blog, my early retirement savings is completely up to me. I almost need to work here for a year to see what I earn. If my dividend income is still increasing, I can stay part-time. If it’s not, I may look for a 2nd job, because my current is too good of a situation to give up.
In short, I need to find 1 more income source to invest more—either through blogging or another job. I need to keep pushing dividend income into the thousands annually.
I eat out less and grocery plan more
Since I’m home more, I find it a lot easier to make food at home, which is not surprising.
Sometimes I’ll even eat enough before work that I don’t need to eat while I’m there, other than snacks.
I’ve even started to cut out my beloved Starbuck’s coffee to save money. I never would’ve thought I would have the power to do this, but since I’m less tired all the time, my will power seems to have increased.
This whole situation has caused me to be less wasteful with groceries in general. When I buy something, I am more committed to using it now.
That commitment to the groceries I’ve already purchased is making it easier to eat out less and to grocery plan better. If I eat out now, it’s for personal enjoyment. It’s not because I didn’t have the time.
Concluding Thoughts – Should you consider Part Time Jobbing to FIRE Financial Independence?
So is part-time job a solid alternative solution for you?
It’s a good FIRE Financial Independence solution if you don’t mind flexible schedules, and if you have something you are passionate about to spend your time on. It also would help to be debt free and to have emergency funds built up to be prepared for slower months.
On the other hand, if your goal is to build your net worth or reach FI as soon as possible, a part-time job may not be the best option.
Although part-time jobbing has its tradeoffs, it can be the perfect solution to a better lifestyle now.
If you can find a part-time situation that pays well enough, it can be great way to have more time now.
If time is really what we’re after, part-time jobbing may be an even better option than financial independence itself.
At the risk of sounding like I’ve changed too much for this blog, I’ve found myself too happy with this lifestyle to even want to blog. There’s hardly a crush to reverse anymore. At least for now, there’s only a lifestyle that I’m worried to lose.
I am not a licensed investment or tax adviser. All opinions are my own. This post contains advertisements by Google Adsense. This post also contains internal links, affiliate links, and links to RTC social media accounts.
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Dividend Income Fund Projection – October 2019 – $608.34
