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What if you didn’t have to work for 10+ straight years to retire? What if you could take short breaks on the way to early retirement?
Today’s guest does just that. Lauren works as a relief veterinarian 6 months of the year and goes on jealousy-inducing long thru-hikes the rest of the year. A relief vet is like a traveling nurse…. but for animals, not humans. She has set up an amazing lifestyle and is living life on her terms. By keeping her expenses and debt to a minimum early in life, Lauren was able to craft the kind of lifestyle she wanted….. not what the world told her to do.
Lauren is in absolute control over her life and she is crushing it!
We also chat about…
- finding relief work
- how to help animals
- resources for thru hiking
- her plans for the Appalachian trail
- the difference between Coast FI and FI
Enjoy this chat with Lauren, and please subscribe to us in iTunes if you enjoyed it!
Show notes and links from today’s episode
Lauren’s Blog
The Millionaire Teacher – Andrew Hallam
GWEN MADE IT ON MARKETWATCH!!!
Wu Tang Financial Twitter
Mr. 1500 is awesome
Tanja from Our Next Life is the best
Venture Crew (like a co-ed scout org)
Walking with Wired
Carrot Quinn
Key takeaways from our chat with
1 – Not burning bridges pays off
Lauren got started with relief work from a former employer. If she hadn’t left on good terms, it would’ve been far more difficult getting started.
Instead, she was able to leverage her previous employer and their network to start building up contacts for work.
2 – Being debt free allows you to take chances
Debt comes in a lot of different forms, some avoidable, some not so avoidable. Student loans, car loans, medical debt….. it can cause massive issues if allowed to pile up.
Laureen leveraged scholarships, going to the same university for grad school and undergrad, and graduating a year early to keep her student loans from accumulating too much. With her parent’s help, she managed to keep her debt to a mere $30k upon graduation, which she then paid off in 9 months!
She kept her expenses as low as possible and lived like a student as long as long as she could. Not buying a $2,000 mattress or a $600 dining room table set really allowed her to buckle down, get out of debt, and start saving.
3 – Beware the sunk cost fallacy
It’s better to quit once you figure out things aren’t working as opposed to staying on a trajectory because you’ve already put a lot of money into it.
Lauren started a Ph.D. program at age 27 and decided it wasn’t working. She was MISERABLE. The opportunities she was looking for weren’t there. So she left. It didn’t matter the money she’d put in. Future happiness is worth more than money.
4 – Lauren makes her own schedule
Can you imagine telling your boss you’re going to take the next 6 months off? No? We couldn’t either, but that’s exactly what she does.
By thinking a bit outside the box and being willing to take on some risk, Lauren lives an amazing life. Since she has so much saved up, being off work for a bit between relief vet stints is no big deal. Now compare that scenario to the typical American living paycheck to paycheck and you can see why more people don’t do it.
Lauren’s story proves there is a need out there. How could you make that work in your life?
Today’s post is sponsored by Olivia from BirdsofaFIRE and Military Dollar.
Olivia writes about financial independence and hacking luxuries for w-aaaay less. She’s a 25 year old woman who lives in New York City, is a spreadsheet and programming nerd, and saves a whopping 70 percent of her income. She believes everyone should be able to retire early so she created a FREE 20,000+ word financial independence 2 week email course that comes with a super in-depth spreadsheet so you can save more, invest better, and retire sooner. You can find her at birdsofafire.com/firedrill.
Military Dollar writes about financial independence from an active duty military point of view. She has an incredibly inspiring message to share with us for anyone attempting financial independence and/or starting a business.
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