Work is better when you don’t need the money!
Mr Money Mustache
Work Less, Live More | Robert Clyatt
So you’re a professional; after years of hard work, study and sacrifice you’re experiencing the success of your labours and on a decent income. But there’s only one problem – your working long hours and it’s catching up with you! Maybe you’re even thinking about quitting to go and live your best life, but you are not yet Financially Independent and can’t afford to retire… Clyatt has a solution – enter the world of Semi-retirement!
Semi-retirement is all about living a more sustainable lifestyle. By simplifying your life with a few simple changes (that have massive upsides) and designing a lifestyle around sustainability, efficiency and your community, you might find that you just don’t need that high income after all…
Work Less Live More is not a get rich quick scheme. But it doesn’t suggest you to go and be a hippie living in a forest eating leaves either. It won’t even give you a way to quit your job tomorrow. It does however, offer a well presented, thoroughly researched and backed up logical presentation about how you can begin to invest your money and create a safe lifetime withdrawal plan. In doing so, you reduce your reliance on your active career; diversifying your income and reducing your overall risk.
Chapters;
- Why do you want to work less?
- Live below your means.
- Put your investing on autopilot.
- Take 4% forever.
- Stop worrying about taxes
- Do anything you want, but do something
- Don’t blow it
- Make your life matter
Many of us do not realise just how much money and life energy we actually spend in the pursuit of earning our income – expensive cars and time spent commuting (car payments, fuel, registration, tolls, and maintenance just to start), work related costs such as uniforms, laptops and that spent networking, and the general fatigue and burn out associated with full time work which leads to poor lifestyle choices like skipping the gym and eating junk food. And even after all that, you lose a big portion of it to income tax!
Work Less Live More presents the reader with sensible spending guidelines and examples they can use to help reign in wasteful spending. Decades of your life back just because you didn’t drive that brand new Mercedes to work? Yes please!
Through a combination of having multiple income streams and living a less expensive (but equally if not more satisfying) lifestyle, you can work fewer hours. It is as simple as that. This gives you more time to spend with your family and friends, to work on your goals and dreams, and to enjoy your hobbies.
Clyatt gives several case studies and stories of early semi-retirees who demonstrate the benefits of this fundamental shift in mindset. They exalt the benefit of ‘meaningful work’ over ‘full time work’. Clyatt also provides input for those ‘late to the party’ and how they can manage their finances in later stages of life, including managing healthcare
Check it out on Amazon here, or listen to it on Audible
Captain FI is a Retired Pilot who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He is passionate about Financial Independence and writes about Personal Finance and his journey to reach FI at 29, allowing him to retire at 30.
