Before we dig into today’s post we wanted to let our readers know that our most recent podcast recording is out:<\/p>\n
I opened up quite a bit more in this episode so I hope you enjoy it.\u00a0 As always, we keep our Guest Appearances page<\/a> up to date which houses all of the press, blogs, and podcasts we’ve been featured on. On to the show!<\/p>\n It’s now been over a year since I made the insanely tough decision to shift from full-time work to a part-time role as we transition to early retirement.\u00a0 It took me over 5 months of back and forth conversations with Nic to finally pull the trigger and back down from a full-time role.\u00a0\u00a0 Last year I dug into the major internal battle I had with this decision as we were so close to our FIRE number<\/a> so I wanted to circle back on this topic after a year in to see if\/how my thoughts have changed\/evolved.<\/p>\n The biggest pro to my new set up is the hours and schedule<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n What makes this truly wonderful is that I work shift work.\u00a0 For those unfamiliar, this means I know the exact day\/hours I will be at work and the exact days\/hours that I will be off – upfront, for the entire year.\u00a0 And by off, I mean completely off as someone else within my team is doing my same job instead during their shift.<\/p>\n No checking emails when at home.\u00a0 No last minute deadlines to somehow meet.\u00a0 No meetings.\u00a0 No presentations, decks, or reports to produce.\u00a0 No off the clock phone calls.\u00a0 No work distractions at home occupying my mental space at home.<\/p>\n BOUNDARIES.<\/p>\n Since I switched to a 50% role, my schedule is as follows: 2 nights on, 8 days off – on repeat.\u00a0 (Full time would have been 2 days, 2 nights, 6 off, repeat.)\u00a0 These shifts are 12 hours long from 6:00 pm – 6:00 am.\u00a0 So over a 10 day timeframe, I work 24 hours.<\/p>\n Let’s think about that further.\u00a0 Most salaried employees are working 7 days over a 10-day period with 3 days off (extrapolating 5 workdays per 7 day week to a 10 day period since that’s my work cycle).\u00a0 I’m basically the opposite of that.\u00a0 So while most people are living for the weekends, I’m the opposite.<\/p>\n Over the course of the year, I work 73 days and am off 292 days. It’s absolutely glorious.<\/p>\n If we were to convert this to the equivalent of someone working 8 hour days, this would be 110 8-hour days during the year.\u00a0 Meaning I get 37 more days completely off by bulking up my shifts into 12 hour segments instead of 8.\u00a0 Considering I only work 73, that’s a big difference.\u00a0 Assuming I’d work 47 weeks out of the year (accounting for holidays and vacations off), this would equate to working 2.3 8-hour days a week.\u00a0 The beauty with shift work is I can bulk up my hours in the office which allows for many more days completely work-free.<\/p>\n Because of having\u00a0so\u00a0<\/strong>much time off and with Nic already retired, I truly feel like I’m living the retired life yet we’re still able to maintain a 50% savings rate.\u00a0 And I still receive employer sponsored health benefits (heyo massages!).\u00a0 We now have time to focus on what matters most – our own priorities.\u00a0 I’m able to spend the large majority of my time with people who matter the most to me.\u00a0 On a random Tuesday morning, Nic and I can talk about life.\u00a0 If my mom wants to FaceTime in the middle of the day, I can answer the call and chat for an hour.\u00a0 I’m on track to read 52 books this year.\u00a0 I can read blog posts from fellow personal finance blogger friends during a slow breakfast.<\/p>\n Another big pro is because I only work night shifts, it’s a very relaxed setting.\u00a0 First off, I’m always driving against traffic, not with it.\u00a0 When I get to work, I do handoff with the day crew and then I work with just one other shift partner throughout the night.\u00a0 As an introvert, this is great news.\u00a0 He also prefers to work with the lights off and tv on.\u00a0 Fine by me.\u00a0 I can wear sweats and a hoodie to work every day.\u00a0 No dressing up in work clothes.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 For those working from home in their pajamas due to COVID, you’re getting a glimpse into my everyday attire even while in an office.\u00a0\u00a0The only time I see my boss is when we have quarterly team meetings (with COVID this means I haven’t seen or spoke to my boss since January).\u00a0 I’m busy the first few hours of the shift and the last few hours with typically a nice long lull in the middle where these lovely posts get written.\u00a0 So as you can imagine, it’s a pretty chill setup.<\/p>\n I was working in this same position back in 2016-2017 and I loved the nights but couldn’t stand the day shifts.\u00a0 Having to wake up at 4:30 am was horrible.\u00a0 Having to dress up and deal with the work politics and schmoozing is not my thing. Day shifts are always busier with a lot more fire alarm type drills to deal with.\u00a0 My anxiety of day shifts kept me awake and always led to really terrible sleeps.\u00a0 I always tried to swap out my day shifts for nights.\u00a0 This sometimes meant working 7 night shifts in a row (84 hours over 7 nights) to then get 10 days off.<\/p>\n Looking back, having the opportunity to work in this role as nights only with half the number of shifts really is my dream set up.\u00a0 I’m still so baffled as to why the decision to make this switch was so hard.\u00a0 But let’s face it, change in general is hard.\u00a0 Everyone sort of gets comfortable with the status quo.\u00a0 There’s that fear of the unknown churning in the back of your head.\u00a0 That little devil is sitting on one shoulder telling you all the reasons why that change is a bad idea.<\/p>\n Now that it’s been over a year, I can confidently tell that little devil to buzz off as this was hands down the right decision for our family.<\/p>\n From a financial standpoint, I feel really weird writing this with all the craziness and uncertainty going on in the world, but my team had an amazing year and I’m anticipating a bonus in March of 100-200% of my base salary.\u00a0 So there is a very good chance that my overall pay for the year is going to be higher<\/strong> than if I were to have stayed in my previous full-time job.\u00a0 Just crazy!\u00a0 My pay is already ridiculous for what I do ($64\/hour pre-tax) and with this bonus we’re talking $127-191\/hour pre-tax.\u00a0 Excuse me what?!?!\u00a0 This was 100% not<\/span> expected.<\/p>\n Now of course it’s not 100% rainbows and butterflies.\u00a0 Similar to how the hours and schedule are what makes this position so awesome, it’s also what makes it brutal.\u00a0 Humans are not supposed to be awake and working throughout the night.\u00a0 Having worked shift work in the past for 6.5 years, I know what this does to your body.\u00a0 It’s not good.\u00a0 It messes up your circadian rhythm and sleep schedule which literally can take off years from your life.\u00a0 In the beginning (2010), my sleep was hardly impacted and I was able to get 9+ hour periods of sleep while on shift where I’d go to sleep at 6:30 am and sleep until 4:00 pm.\u00a0 Over the years, it’s slowly shifted to less and less sleep, and I now sleep about 5 hours when on shift.<\/p>\n What this looks like now is the night before I work a night shift, I try to get to bed as early as possible to “bank” up normal sleep to get 10-11 hours of sleep that night.\u00a0 I wake up around 8 am (no such things as sleeping in with a toddler for me), rest before going into work while Finn has her afternoon nap (maybe I get a 1 hour nap), and I basically pull an all-nighter and go to sleep around 6:30 am the next morning.\u00a0 Somehow I don’t feel tired during this first shift – and I am NOT a night owl!\u00a0 It’s the next shift that sucks.\u00a0 I sleep for about 5 hours, wake up around 11:30 am\/12:00 pm, rest a few hours later when Finn is napping, then head into the office for another 12-hour shift.\u00a0 This is where the sleep deprivation wall hits.\u00a0 I’m able to push through knowing that this is the last one and I have 8 days to recoup.\u00a0 At this point, when I get home around 6:30 am I’m wiped.\u00a0 I sleep until 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm and pass out for the night around 8:30 pm to get 10+ hours of sleep to try and catch back up.\u00a0 By the next day I’m feeling fine again so the first day off is pretty much a wash but then I have 7 high-quality days off.\u00a0 For me, it’s worth the crazy sleep for the ample time off.<\/p>\n Oddly enough, another con is that my to-do list somehow seems to get longer even though I have more free time available.\u00a0 I’ve never been a procrastinator, but knowing I have 8 days to get a task done, I find myself pushing things off more and more.\u00a0 Instead, I’d rather play with Finn or read a book and get to it at another time.\u00a0 Not sure how I feel about this really.\u00a0 I’m becoming more relaxed in a sense but crossing things off my to-do list still remains one of my favorite things to do.<\/p>\n Let’s take a step back first.\u00a0 In my previous full-time role, I was working 8:00 am – 5:00 pm and expected to be checking emails at all times, even on “vacation” (I use quotations as I was never really able to vacate work while logging time off).\u00a0 This role required an extensive amount of travel (2-3 times per month) with a very unpredictable schedule.\u00a0 Most weeks, I would be booking a flight on Thursday or Friday for the following Monday.\u00a0 Aka I couldn’t plan life outside work.\u00a0 And for a Type-A planner, this sucked!<\/p>\n Plans with friends often had to get rescheduled.\u00a0\u00a0The idea of planning a vacation stressed me out.\u00a0 And thus we didn’t go on any out-of-town vacations as a family other than pre-planned trips we had made prior to accepting that position which I ran by my future boss before accepting. Compare this to when I made the switch back to shift work, I had my schedule for the year and within weeks we booked a 2-week vacation down to Florida.\u00a0 We then booked a week long trip to Vancouver Island for a few months later and COVID-19 hit so that got canceled but you can see the difference in how our lifestyles were panning out.<\/p>\n I also felt like I couldn’t escape from work.\u00a0 It was always a thought in the back of my mind.\u00a0 And I definitely didn’t feel fulfilled.\u00a0 My job was a senior project manager for developing large scale (utility) renewable energy projects which basically means asking different subject matter experts to do work for you and to make sure all the work being done by others is actually happening.\u00a0 For me, this was very unfulfilling as I pretty much felt like this weird middle man glorified babysitter with no real responsibility other than to report on the progress of others.\u00a0 Only a few projects I was working on would actually lead into something real (years down the road), which also left me feeling very hollow about my position.\u00a0 There’s a ton of schmoozing involved (both internally and externally) which is NOT my thing.\u00a0 I did enjoy all the conferences I was encouraged to go to as that’s where I’d learn a lot of new material – but the schmoozing and small talk?\u00a0 Nah.<\/p>\n Jumping over to my current role, the work I do is for the here and now.\u00a0 I make a decision and I see within an hour if it was the right call or not.\u00a0 I can calculate at the end of each shift how much money I made for our team.\u00a0 I work one-on-one with my shift partner sitting right next to me doing the same work so its a nice team oriented setup without any work meetings, presentations, TPS reports, etc. involved.<\/p>\n Stepping outside of work, this is what it’s all about.\u00a0 This is our why to FI.\u00a0 While the work itself is more my style, what it really comes down to is the lifestyle.\u00a0 The balance.<\/p>\n Here is what our days look like for the most part in this COVID-19 world:<\/p>\n Obviously some days we don’t follow this schedule but for the most part, this is what to expect if you were a fly on our wall during this COVID-19 winter.\u00a0 When I’m working nights, Nic is solo in the morning until I wake up.\u00a0 Otherwise we’re all doing the above together.\u00a0 We have been carving out some solo time each week where I’ll take Finn for the morning one day and Nic will take her another morning to give us breaks to recharge a bit.<\/p>\n The most important aspect to all of this is that both Nic and I are actually able to see our child grow up.\u00a0 Not having our daughter in day-care means we are drained and exhausted.\u00a0 Every.\u00a0 Single.\u00a0 Day.\u00a0 But we wouldn’t want it any other way.\u00a0 We get to see her grow and evolve right in front of our eyes.\u00a0 We get to teach her so many valuable life lessons during these super formative early years.\u00a0 We get to really learn about her personality.\u00a0 We get to be silly 2-year old’s together.\u00a0 We determine what she eats, her schedule, and what values she’s being taught.\u00a0 We’re always there for our daughter rather than being stuck in a cubicle.\u00a0 We get to witness all her milestones firsthand.\u00a0 We can focus 100% of our time and energy on her as we aren’t worried about work deadlines, what my boss will say about ‘x’, or any workplace stress.\u00a0 Reaching FI and making the decision to cut down on work has given us the opportunity to actually know our daughter, and it truly has been worth it for that reason alone.<\/p>\n In reality, we are not retired.\u00a0 We just have a new job title really. A new job title we are truly proud to wear.<\/p>\n I can say with 10000% confidence, that this was absolutely the right call for our family.\u00a0 Even with COVID-19, the markets are at new all-time highs and we’re past our FIRE number (although I am still very weary of these markets).\u00a0 Our stress levels are near zero and we get to spend so many cherished days together.<\/p>\n Oil change?\u00a0 Coffee meet up?\u00a0 Doctor appointment?\u00a0 Dentist appointment?\u00a0 Eye exam?\u00a0 Lunch with a friend?\u00a0 Massage?\u00a0 Chiro?\u00a0 Sure, anytime.\u00a0 Most full time employees struggle to find time during the week to get these type of errands done whereas we can do all of the above in any given week.<\/p>\n Get a dump of snow?\u00a0 We can go skiing or sledding on a random Tuesday morning.\u00a0 Need groceries?\u00a0 We have the time to read through the flyer for sales and can avoid crowds at the grocery store.\u00a0 And then we have ample time to cook what new recipe we feel like trying out for the day.\u00a0 Feeling cooped up?\u00a0 We can go out for a hike anytime we want depending on the ideal weather throughout the day.\u00a0 Yet we’re still able to save half my income and not withdraw anything from our portfolio.\u00a0 To me, this is the epitome of the best of both worlds.\u00a0 It’s like we’re living the Coast FI life but with our FI number already met.\u00a0 It’s a really nice feeling.<\/p>\n By being focused in our 20s, we’ve been able to create our dream reality in our early 30s.\u00a0 We are so grateful to be in this amazing situation.\u00a0 Honestly, my only regret is not doing this sooner.<\/p>\n Are you considering making any changes to your life?\u00a0 If so, how are you feeling about it?\u00a0 Have you ever considered transitioning to a part-time role?\u00a0 We hope that sharing our story helps motivate some of you on the fence to just go for it!<\/p>\n Related Post: Why I Decided To Switch To Part Time\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n If you liked this article and want more content like this, please support this blog by sharing it. Not only does it help spread the FIRE, but it lets me know what content you find beneficial. Writing is NOT my strong suit and it honestly takes me hours to write each post so the more encouragement the better! Engaging in the comments below keeps me motivated. You can also support this blog by subscribing to receive emails anytime a new post is published. Thank you FImily!<\/span><\/p>\n We believe in stacking up life hacks to keep your enjoyment levels to the max without depleting your bank account. Here are some ways to further educate yourself and save thousands of dollars over your lifetime by making some simple adjustments:<\/span><\/p>\n Before we dig into today’s post we wanted to let our readers know that our most recent podcast recording is out: The Alain Guillot Show: …<\/p>\n
\nPros of the Switch<\/h2>\n
Cons of the Switch<\/h2>\n
What Life Looks Like Now<\/h2>\n
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Any Regrets?<\/h2>\n
Support This Blog<\/span><\/h2>\n
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