❗❗❗I Quit My Job ❗❗❗

Last week, I quit my job. 

I started this blog as a way to document the journey my husband and I are on to get to FIRE– financial independence, retire early. When we started a few years ago, I figured it would take us about ten years. But now, I’m finishing out a few weeks of notice at my job even though we’re not at our FIRE number (annual expenses x 25) yet. So what are we doing?!

Let me start by saying that God has blessed our family beyond what we could have imagined. I’m married to the kindest, funniest, most handsome guy in the world, and we’ve been able to grow our family through foster care and adoption. My parents and grandma moved nearby a few years ago, so we get to spend lots of time with family and our kids have time to develop deep relationships with their grandparents. Our church community nourishes and encourages us during good times and bad times. And my career has blossomed, allowing us to live a comfortable lifestyle even while Mr. Sense is a stay at home parent, and save and give in accordance with our financial goals. 

Thanks be to God. 

Financially, we’ve been right on track for our FIRE plan for a while now. But some changes at my job caused us to shake things up a bit. My boss retired a few months ago, and I received a promotion and significant pay bump when he left. Mr. Sense and I were excited about this opportunity to turbocharge our savings and giving. The owner of the company presented me with a new pay structure that sounded pretty sweet, and I got to work right away, even though we didn’t have an agreement in writing yet (note: never do this). The eventual written agreement didn’t quite line up with what I had been told, but I figured it was close enough. I worked really hard and knocked it out of the park, generating a couple excellent paychecks in a commission based sales job. It wasn’t long before the owner wanted to further tinker with the pay plan. 

Within three months, I went from excited and motivated to seriously demoralized every time I stepped into the office. It was tough to find fulfillment in the same work I had usually enjoyed since I was constantly on alert for another bad meeting with bad news for my paycheck. At the same time, I was working more hours and missing time with the newest addition to our family, a three year old girl, and Kid Sense, who is home from college for summer break.

Mr. Sense and I prayed about it a lot and realized that our FIRE habits have set us up well to deal with our new reality. We’ve been focused on saving up for a permanent break from required paid employment, and while we’re not in a position where we’ll never need to make money ever again, we have solid savings and lots of practice living frugally. 

Suddenly, a situation that was causing stress and frustration seemed like a huge opportunity. Since we already had the cash to handle our expenses for a while, what might we be able to do with our time and energy if I wasn’t going to work five days a week? Mr. Sense has big dreams for the lunch program he helps coordinate through our church. He’d also always been curious about opening a food truck– could that be a possibility now? I realized a career break could help me recover from burnout and allow me to explore other interests. I want to focus on my marathon training and piano practice, plus do some more writing for MammonSense, which my readers will notice has been kind of a snooze fest since our younger kiddo moved in a few months ago and writing took a backseat. 

As it often does, real life seems to be turning out differently but even better than our plans. Being on the FIRE track for a few years has afforded us the ability to be flexible now. 

Even though this whole story is a lesson to us in not being too attached to our own plans, I’ll touch on how we anticipate the next few months going. 

Mr. Sense accepted a part time job at a restaurant that’s walkable from our house. He hopes to gain some official kitchen experience and decide if he’s interested in starting his own business (or if he prefers cooking more as a hobby than a profession). He’s considering other options for the future that could allow him to serve underprivileged people in our community. Mr. Sense is a hard working guy who likes getting stuff done right, and I have no doubt he’ll be an asset to anyone he works with. 

For my part, I’ve promised my husband that I won’t dive back into a job for at least a few months. I have a tendency to say yes to every cool sounding opportunity that comes my way and sometimes I get overbooked and stressed out. So I plan to go against my uber productive nature and take a few months to spend time with my kids, run a whole lot of miles, and learn some awesome piano pieces. I’m not confident I’ll be able to avoid the siren song of employment forever, but I want to take time to listen to God about what kind of work would be most glorifying to Him and best for our family. 

People familiar with the FIRE vernacular might define this as a period of “barista FIRE”-- we’re not completely financially independent because we’ll need to earn some money to support our current lifestyle long term. But for now, we plan to live on a little less, make a lot less, and cushion our budget using some of our savings. This means I’ll have lots of new things to tell all you readers about– how we’re handling surprise expenses, what happens to our lifestyle when we have a lot more family time but less income, how we’re handling investments and health insurance, and more. 

I’m open to advice, comments, warnings, pretty much anything besides dire predictions of doom. Email me at mammonsense@gmail.com if you have thoughts!