About a year and a half ago, I wanted to write a blog called “My Ten-Year plan.”  I had received a physical sign inside my mailbox in a form of a coupon book, “CHEERS TO 10 Years!” from Simple Truth. Even the name of the company was auspicious. I do want to write simple truth. I want to share what I’ve learned in my forty years of life and maybe help someone shorten their financial, spiritual, and emotional growing pains. As life tends to happen when we’re busy making other plans, my hands were tied . . . until now.

Now, I’m finally finished with my teaching credential program and I’m that much closer to reaching my ten-year goal. I might even be able to shorten it. Ever since Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) introduced me to the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement and the “The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement,” going full time took on a whole new meaning. I didn’t have a plan to teach full time per se, except that it became obvious to me that I wouldn’t survive on my substitute teaching salary living in Los Angeles. At least, not on my own. It was also around that time that I began to experience my first doubts whether my marriage was going to last forever. 

So, what was my ten-year plan?

In the words of the writers at Millennial Revolution, I “mathed shit up” and figured out that if I saved sixty-five percent of my income, I could retire in 10 years. And I had planned to document my progress every step of the way. I didn’t want to just blog about personal finance as there are so many great blogs on the topic already out there, but about living more intentionally and consciously. I wanted to work on and document what I was going to be retiring into. Before the teaching thing, I was very clear about what I wanted to do with my life. Since my early twenties, I had been pursuing writing, primarily fiction. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but for many years I believed that the right story will finds its audience, as well as provide me with financial stability. Somewhere around 2017, I stopped believing the latter. 

Just like that – the belief that had gotten me through years of doubt, left my system and I couldn’t fake it back into my life. Instead, I tried to return to my first passion – psychology. I applied and got into an online MFT program and for four months did very well. Unfortunately, I was paying out of pocket, and the PTSD from the enormous debt I had to get out of in my twenties (a story for another time) came rushing in. The prospect of years of schooling to do on my own dime, followed by the unpaid internship, and no job security waiting for me at the end, induced panic attacks. I quit school and got married instead. That made me feel secure for a while and then 2020 hit. 

Suddenly, the thirteen-year substitute teaching gig that had been there for me, no matter how many times I had left it, and it always came back to me, was now in question. Everything was in question. Were we going to survive the pandemic as an individual, the nation, or even as the world? What did it all mean or matter? Like a bi-polar, I went from 100 to 0, first exuberant about the prospects of working from home to try it all to total collapse. I started an online music publishing business with my husband, began to record our second album, started several blogging sites while at the same time working on a book all while trying to make daily videos for “The Day in a Life” to share with the public. Of course, whatever goes up that quickly, must come down, sometimes even quicker. Like the stock market, I crashed. I couldn’t keep up that pace and ambition. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted anymore or who I was. 

By the end of 2020, after some soul searching and painful realizations about myself and my relationship, I decided to give full time teaching a shot, something I had said I would never do. Nothing against teaching, I just used to believe that my purpose lay elsewhere. With that in mind, as I began to pursue a teaching credential, I gave myself an out at every turn. If I don’t pass the CSET, I’m out. If I don’t get placement in a school I want, I’m out. If I don’t pass the RICA, I’m out. If I get a horrible class, I’m out. But with every turn, I had passed everything from the first try. I got the school I wanted. I got the classes I wanted. Everything was falling into place, and I didn’t understand why when I had avoided full time teaching like the plague for so many years. 

So, back to the ten-year plan. Ten years seemed like a good number and had personal significances. In ten years, I would’ve been just under fifty. My husband would’ve just retired, and I could’ve retired with him. My Saturn period was going to end, and life would flow more smoothly. The pension I would get from teaching once I was eligible to collect would nicely combine with my savings. And if the math didn’t quite add up once the ten years was up, my husband and I had planned to move out of LA. 

By the way, the formula to figure out your FI number is as follows:

25 x 1-year expenses = FI (financial independence) number

Once I discovered FIRE and how simple it was to figure out how to get there, full time teaching made total sense. I didn’t have to love it because I didn’t have to do it the rest of my life. I only had to like it enough, to make it ten years. As it turns out, I enjoy many aspects of teaching. If only I knew that when I was twenty. Anyone out there who’s still in their twenties, thirties, or even forties, pay attention. You don’t have to be in love with what you do, just do it long enough to become free, and then do what you love. You don’t even have to give up what you love while you’re pursuing your freedom, you can do it in-between during what the FI community calls, “the boring middle.” 

So, the plan was to cut expenses to the proportions I was comfortable with and save/invest the difference of my now much bigger paycheck. I was already so used to living on a small sub salary that saving the difference proved to be easy. The recommendation of the FI community, as well as from my personal, painful experience with investing (yet, another story), is to consistently invest your money in low-cost Index Funds, proportionally split between the total stock market and the total bond market, depending on your age and risk tolerance. For me it’s 70 stocks/20 bonds/10 cash. 

So that was the plan…. Is it still the plan? 

Yes, with some adjustments. I’m now a year and a half into my plan and I’m closer to my FI number than I thought I would be at this point, thanks to compounding, raises at work, and a 70% savings rate. What I also learned after cutting out restaurants, which did save me like $10,000/year, is that as much as I agree with the other FI enthusiasts that saving the most you can is key, I discovered that cutting out the things that fulfilled my life, like the eating out experience, diminished my quality of life. I don’t spend money on fancy clothes, cars, apartments, vacations, or pretty much anything else, but eating out gives my life flavor that I enjoy. I would rather spend the additional 5% I was saving to get more out of life. You don’t need to cut on things you value to become FI. 

The primary adjustment to the plan, however, is that I will be doing it as a single, as well as by using the time in-between or “the boring middle,” to create an abundant and fulfilling life so that when work becomes choice, I’m already living the life I want. 

What are your thoughts? Do you have a 10-year or a 5-year plan? Share in comments. It’s always more fun to go on journeys together.