Has anyone here made a decision to change their lifestyle and go with something totally different? What age were you when you made this change? What reaction did you get from friends and family? Was it tough making the transition? Did something happen to prompt the change? Was the change temporary or permanent? What lessons did you learn? Share your story.

 Five years ago my Dh and I decided to take early retirement when we became eligible for our pensions, instead of waiting until we were a little better financially. We never regretted that we did, as the stress of our jobs was taking a toll on our health. It was tough the first 2 years, mainly because of the cost of gasoline and the other price increases happening at the time. After some tough budgeting on my part, we got through it, and now are doing well enough to be able to bank one of our pensions for future needs. It is a permanent change, as neither one of us is motivated to go back into the working world. We were mid 50's in age when we retired. It would be difficult now to find jobs anyway for our skill level and experience.

We are enjoying not having to be up and out early in the morning and when we don't want to go out, we don't. It makes for a nice life.  Edey

I retired seven years ago after a 29-year career in law enforcement. At the same time DW quit her high-stress government job doing funds administration for bioterrorism research. Especially after 9/11 she was working 10 and 12-hour days, six or sometimes seven days a week and would come home and collapse on the couch. We had zero debt, considerable savings, and would have a pension from my job, even with me taking a "spousal benefit" option that decreased the pension by quite a bit. That was so that if/when I get The Big Ache she will continue to have an income and medical benefits.

We sold the paid-for house we'd lived in for 15 years and moved to West Virginia in large part to escape the Washington, DC area traffic, often rated as the worst or at least in the top 5 worst in the country. Basically, a 7-mile trip attempted at the "wrong" time of day can take a couple of hours, just sitting in traffic jams.

DW agonized over leaving what many would consider a "good" government job with benefits and a retirement plan, but she hasn't been to the doctor's nearly as often since leaving. So we concluded that maybe that wasn't such a good job after all if it was slowly killing her. That said, we did have the retirement income and medical benefits from my old job so that base was covered. Without that, we of course would not have felt free to make the change that we did.

Even though our total income dropped by more than half, six months later friends and family said we both looked more relaxed than they'd seen us in years. We had, as one can imagine, agonized over the decision both before and after whether we had done the right thing. But one cannot put a price tag on the low-stress life we have now. That's priceless! Evidently many people in WV feel that way too. A few years ago DW applied for a part time $9/hour secretary job at a local college and they had multiple people with Ph.D.'s applying for it!

DW went back to school and last May earned her BA degree that she started on 25 years ago, and eventually I found a low-stress armed security job. DW is looking for a low-stress job, preferably part time, but jobs are of course hard to come by now especially around here. We did find that going from "full throttle" to "idle" in lifestyle was a bigger adjustment than either thought it would be in that we didn't plan very well for what we would do with all the sudden free time, which is part of why I started the job. We found that even inexpensive activities still cost some money, even if it's only gasoline to drive to a park. With some of the extra income from my job I bought a motorcycle and enjoy that on my days off, weather permitting, and since it gets 50 mpg I use it for short trips with a light load like picking up a prescription. And being the "savers" that we are we're saving about 3/4 of the "extra" income for the time when I leave the job I have now.

So for now things are looking good for us.

Toni B.:

Has anyone here made a decision to change their lifestyle and go with something totally different?

If there was one word to describe my childhood it would be chaos. I joined the military (Air Force).

Toni B.:

What age were you when you made this change?

It was 1977 and I was 21. Just after Viet Nam ended. I served for eleven years during the Cold War.

Toni B.:

What reaction did you get from friends and family?

My friends were shocked and tried to talk me out of joining. My older sister felt abandoned because she had no idea where the military would take me.

Toni B.:

Was it tough making the transition?

It was different than what I grew up with but I adapted quickly, discovering that I thrived on structure and a sense of purpose.

Toni B.:

Did something happen to prompt the change?

Between the ages of 18 and 21, I tried various jobs and was working as a cashier at a chain drug store. Not very challenging. My boyfriend who had been in dared me to talk to a recruiter.

Toni B.:

Was the change temporary or permanent?

Both. My length of service lasted eleven years and I was half way to being able to get a 20 year retirement. I had to make a decision to take a new assignment and get stationed someplace but my husband couldn't join me. So I opted to get out rather than break up our family.

Toni B.:

What lessons did you learn?

1) Sometimes decisions can't only be about the money. 2) That there is always more options but fear keeps us from seeing the big picture. 3) It feels good to belong to something "bigger" and have a sense of purpose. 4)It was the first time in my life I had structure and security. 5) And the military is like a jealous mistress that demands 100% attention and commitment. 6) The experience fine tuned my work ethic and a strong organized foundation.

Toni B.:

Has anyone here made a decision to change their lifestyle and go with something totally different? What age were you when you made this change? What reaction did you get from friends and family? Was it tough making the transition? Did something happen to prompt the change? Was the change temporary or permanent? What lessons did you learn? Share your story.

 

Five and a half years ago, at the age of 31, I decided to quit my full-time job and become a freelancer.  It was something I'd been considering for a while--basically ever since the small development house I'd started working for just six months after college was acquired by a great big publishing house that laid off 40 percent of our work force within the first few months and made various other changes in our corporate culture.  I finally decided to take the plunge when the big publisher announced that it would be closing down the office where my division was and relocating us all to its New Jersey headquarters out in the suburbs.  That meant that I would no longer be able to take the train to work as I'd been doing for the past several years.  I would have a 45-minute commute each way by car.  Even so, I probably wouldn't have dared to quit at that point if I hadn't just become engaged to be married.  My husband-to-be had a full-time job with benefits, so I knew that once we tied the knot, we would both have health insurance, as well as a steady income stream.  Basically, it was the right move at the right time.  (And a couple of years later, the big company ended up restructuring and closing my old division completely--so as it turned out, I couldn't have kept the job more than a couple of years even if I'd wanted to.)

The change turned out to be permanent--at least, so far it has.  I've been working only on a freelance basis for five years now.   In that time, I've learned several lessons:

1. The biggest benefit of freelancing is that you can set your own schedule.  You work when it's convenient, not when your office is open.  You can schedule a doctor's appointment at any time of day; you can go out on a weekday and work on a weekend instead; and if you finish everything you need to get done that day, you can just stop working, instead of having to find something to fill up the remaining hours until it's time to punch the clock.  And there's no commute.  And you can work in your pajamas if you feel like it.

2. The biggest drawback of freelancing is that work doesn't just come to you--you have to go and look for it.  Peddling my services to clients is definitely my least favorite aspect of the job, and I still don't really know how to do it well.  After five years, I still have only two reliable clients, and when they have nothing available, I can go for months at a time without work, as I did earlier this year.  Much as I enjoy working on my own schedule, I still wouldn't recommend this career move to anyone who doesn't have reliable income and benefits from another source (like a spouse).  For us it's been okay, since we can live comfortably enough on my husband's salary even if I have no income at all--so the only really difficult thing about being out of work so long was feeling like a freeloader.  He has never been anything but supportive, but I still felt guilty.

3. If you work from home, it's easy to feel a bit isolated.  I started making a point of going for a walk in the middle of the day, mainly to get myself out of the house and remind myself that there were other people in the world.  Otherwise I could have gone for days without seeing anyone at all except my husband.  And I might never have bothered to change out of my pajamas at all.

4. Lastly, do not--repeat, do not--try to run a home office without a broadband internet connection.  We don't have cable TV at our house, but a cable modem is a necessity, not a luxury.

Toni B.:

Has anyone here made a decision to change their lifestyle and go with something totally different? What age were you when you made this change? What reaction did you get from friends and family? Was it tough making the transition? Did something happen to prompt the change? Was the change temporary or permanent? What lessons did you learn? Share your story.

Toni B.:

Has anyone here made a decision to change their lifestyle and go with something totally different? What age were you when you made this change? What reaction did you get from friends and family?

At age 16, I decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints ( Mormons, or LDS) after being raised as a Protestant.  My family was very upset, & since I needed parental permission to be baptised, I had to wait for 2 years to reach legal age in Ohio, which was 18.  I was baptized 4 days after my 18th birthday & my parents asked me to leave the same evening. My father was a corporate vice-president, & the family who gave me a place to stay was a struggling single divorced mom with 2 children, one married & one at home, but the one at home had emotional/mental issues. Quite a change, very challenging.

Toni B.:

Was it tough making the transition?

It was very tough.  I qualified for free lunch as school on my after-school job income, & when I realized I was a financial burden on this dear woman, I signed up for & ate free lunch at school.  Before that, I had never realized how differently "free lunch" kids were treated.  My after school job cleaining cages at a veterinary clinic had only been about a 1/4 mile from my house, but it was 2 miles from where I was living after being asked to leave.  I remember distinctly, 38 years later, walking "home" in a driving snowstorm past the house where I was raised, & seeing my parents & my little brother at the table for dinner.  It hurt.

Toni B.:

Was the change temporary or permanent? What lessons did you learn?

The change of faith was permanent.  Living away from my parents was temporary. 

I learned that I am more like my father than my mother. Dad was big on "facing the consequences of your decisions".  After 2 weeks, I sent a birthday card to my paternal grandmother, explaining in detail why I would be unable to attend her birthday with my family that weekend. Suffice it to say that my father was somewhat surprised when Grandma reamed him out in front of the family ( some of the aunts wrote to me), and when he got home, he wrote me a letter, telling me I could return home under 10 conditions.  I can't remember them all now, but among them were that I could not use a family car to attend church, all my religious materials were to remain in my room, & I was forbidden to speak to my brother or any other relative concerning my faith.  I moved back home, because I knew I was causing a hardship for the sister with whom I was staying, but there was a lot of tension & it was hard.  As soon as I graduated from high school, I applied & was admitted to BYU in Provo, Utah. I worked my way through school there & met & married DH.

The experience left me with a permanent soft spot for anyone in financial need.