Our Plan

I left off the Re-Welcome post with our new found dream to retire early and travel the world.

As I said, this inspiration came from listening to The Expat Chat podcast. We listened to stories of people who left their lives behind to commence full time travel. For the vast majority, they were required to create some sort of online earning potential that made this possible.

We had already planned to retire early sometime within the next ten years. The intention behind this was that we would never have to work again. It is likely that we would have done some work, but there wouldn’t be the requirement to do so for financial reasons. To us, that is what early retirement means.

For us, early retirement means plenty of afternoons like this… and maybe a little bit of work.

So this got us thinking… Was there a way that we could continue this plan but instead of retiring early to a life of hanging out at home, retire to a life of travelling? As we were already planning to have the financial means to do so, this would mean that it was unnecessary for us to come up with a way to make money on the road. This is still an interest of both of ours, but there is no requirement to ensure we can make money while we travel.

Additionally, if we were going to hit the road travelling, then buying a house- something that would be an enormous financial setback to our plans- likely was not the best option. Renting would not only be a lot more affordable, but it would give us the flexibility to go travelling when we were ready. As it is also likely we may have to relocate for our jobs in the next 5-10 years, the idea of renting continued to sound like a positive.

Poopsie has three children, the youngest of whom is 10. In eight years time, she will be 18 and will have graduated from high school. As there is a requirement for Poopsie to pay child support until that time, we thought making eight years our goal to be ready was a good place to start. Paying child support without a regular income would very quickly eat into our savings.

In eight years time, we want to be financially independent and able to quit our jobs and commence a life of slow travel. As Poopsie has children and by then I will have nieces and nephews, and because we love our families, we will definitely return to Australia on a semi-regular basis. However, when we do, we will be staying with friends and family, rather than living in our own place.

Sure, we may become financially ready before the eight year mark in which case, we will probably cut the chord earlier. But at this stage, eight years is the goal. During that eight years, we still want to travel, so we have ensured we set money aside for this. This may slow down the ultimate goal of retiring early, but it is just not something we are willing to compromise on. All of our other expenses (except child support) are open for negotiation and we will be working hard to minimise them in order to maximise our savings.

This is how I spend most of my time… thinking about early retirement.

December 2023 is when Poopsie’s daughter will finish high school.

Bring it on!