Freedom addiction, breaking free from a career

Hi, my name’s Jason, I’m 43 and I’m a freedomaholic. I became addicted to Freedom about 4 years ago, maybe a little earlier. I was working a 40 hour a week job in a multi-national blue chip company, designing the underlying computer systems used to run big business. My career in the company spanned about 8 years, tagged onto the end of another decade working in computing. As had happened a few times in those 18 years, I was burned out. I burned myself out, the company didn’t do it to me, I just pushed and pushed, perhaps through ego, boredom, desire to learn, I don’t know. The job paid well, I had a final salary pension, and all around me I saw people 20 years older than me who’d been trapped in the same situation. Their faces were drawn with it. Their attitudes were negative, sometimes in the extreme.

About this time my brother-in-law produced a copy of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week while I whined to him one evening about how I desperately wanted to leave the corporate world, and start my own business, as he had. The following day I cracked open the book and started to read it. It freaked me out. As I recall, it asked some pretty fundamental questions like “What would you do with your life if you didn’t have to work 9 to 5?” “What are your dreams?” “What are your goals in life”. That kind of thing. It struck me like a hammer. My dreams were long gone. I had no idea how I’d spend my life if not in pursuit of a career. I had (and still have!) a fantastic wife, but aside from that where was I going?

When I didn’t work I read about work. I studied at home, on flights, in hotel rooms. I thought about work before work, after work and even on holidays. I bought computers and networking components and trained myself in them in the spare room. Thousands of pounds went on a library of weighty and often half-read computing, project management, leadership and consulting books. I was the job.

The book went on to describe how Tim had managed to trim down his life to spend only 4 hours a week managing his business, which could all be done on-line so he could work anywhere and minimise his expenses living in lower cost countries. I loved the idea, it gave me a buzz, but I was a computer geek, not a business man. What kind of business could I start? I racked my brains, and came up with nothing. Feeling frustrated and inadequate I gave up on the book, and continued to dig an ever deeper hole for myself. But the idea didn’t leave me.

Four years later, and some weird twists and turns in life, and I’m on the verge of not only a four hour work week, but, if we like (Ju and I are in this together), a zero hour work week. How is this possible? Mainly through a shift in thinking it turns out, more than anything else seeing the world from another angle has, effectively, set us free. In the process I also found a dream. I love to travel. I love to see the way in which others live, the way they think, the buildings they create, the food they eat, the way they cook, their views on work and play, everything. I love breathing the air of the mountains, the feel of the dry desert air and the crackle of static electricity on my skin, the broad steady flow of a patient river, the shade of a timeless twisted olive tree, the lapping of the ocean and the light cast onto a medieval street at dusk.

Oddly, the ‘business’ we came up with, were already ‘running’, and this business could be run from anywhere. It was about as far from an Internet business as it could be. We owned a small bungalow which, having failed to sell in a falling market, we’d opted to rent out. Being novices in the field, we chose to use a letting agent who managed the end to end process for us in return for a fee. We didn’t see this as a business until much later, just a way to enable us to move to a larger house.

Skip backwards, and then forwards a few months and the hole I was in grew deeper and darker. The tipping point was perhaps when I found myself in the back of an ambulance with wires stuck to my chest. I was finding it hard to get breath at work and Ju was driving me to hospital when it deteriorated to the point I started to lose feeling in my legs. Crazily, this turned out to be nothing more than a panic attack. My GP asked afterwards if I was under any stress at work. “Nope, all’s good” I lied to myself. She asked how I felt. I explained the sensation of having a burning tennis ball in my chest, a clear sign I now know well: burned out. With a prescription of mild anti-depressants, which she said would take some days to take effect and wouldn’t be addictive, I left. The pills didn’t work, very likely as I stopped taking them. Pills, I knew, weren’t a long term solution for me.

There had to be another way. I swapped jobs in the company. That didn’t help. Eventually Ju and I agreed: we’d both quit. Ju was working for the same company at the time, and was happy in her job, although also under plenty of pressure too. We’d buy a motorhome and head for Europe for a few months. My hope was the trip would clear my head, maybe find another avenue for us to pursue. I couldn’t have guessed how right I was. During the trip we also rented out our main home, using the same letting agents as before. A wonderful local company, they took care of everything for us while we travelled. Occasionally something would need sorting out: a bath not draining, gas safety certificates needed renewing, a fence panel was damaged, you name it. Quickly and efficiently they sorted any issues, which kept the tenants happy and neither of them left (the properties are still rented to the same great tenants). This came at a price of course, which eroded our income, but the flip side was pure freedom.

Money came in while walked the Earth. It just arrived in the bank as we slept. No commute. No deadlines. No Powerpoint. No politics. No 6:30am flights. Money just came in. Alongside this steady flow of money, Ju was tracking every last cent we spent as we travelled. It all went into a tiny book she carried with her, pencilled in with a category and description. We still have these books, and smile as we draw our finger over each line. As the entries went in, so built our understanding of where our money went. The number of cents coming in from the rental properties didn’t match the money going out. Every cent spent was a cent closer to coming back to reality, to stepping backwards out from a dream, and we grew experts in working out exactly what we wanted to spend money on, and what we didn’t. We also met people like Chris, who nudged us in the direction of financial education, and on our return we got started on building our understanding of money. Books on house rentals, stock markets and general investing were consumed, and our understanding built. The concepts are simple, but we were simply never exposed to them. In their most basic form:

• you earn money,
• instead of spending it you find something you understand and invest the money in it,
• this throws off a small percentage of the money each year in interest, dividends, rent, annuity payments etc
• You get to spend this without touching the money you earned in the first place
• And eventually, if you can get a large enough amount of money invested and get your expenses low enough, at some point the money coming in, plus extra for one-off expenses, matches that going out. Bingo, you’re free to do what the hell you like with your life

We also started up an IT contracting business, which Ju and I both work for, effectively working for ourselves. This generates a bunch of risks which we’d long become accustomed to: maximum of a few weeks job security, no pensions, no sick pay, no private health cover, no paid holiday, a more complex tax process to adhere to, no paid training courses and so on. With risk, comes reward. Our income pretty much doubled from what we’d earned before as permanent employees. With frugality now burned into our bones, our costs stayed low. As the money came in, we invested it, buying another property and renovating it, and dipping our toe into the stock market world to start to get a feel for it. Income from investments got closer to covering our expenses enabling more money to go into investments. Like the opposite of snowballing debt, we experienced the improbable and bewildering sensation of snowballing wealth.

Are we now rich people? I don’t think so. Not in the sense most people in Western countries see wealth. Our investments are still relatively modest. We live in The Cooler, which I doubt many would associate with wealth. Our clothes usually come from charity shops (my current outfit cost about £8), our food from Lidl. We have no TV. We drive an 11 year old Smart car. We (on occasion) salvage wood and cut it up to burn for warmth. We discuss nigh-on every purchase, down to things which cost pence sometimes. From the outside we must look very average. From the inside we know different. We’re free. Totally free. The sensation is quite extra-ordinary. In another 46 working days I’ll step from the corporate world, and into a free future.

Cheers, Jay

For a brief introduction to Tim’s Four Hour Work Week concepts, press the play button below: