Well it has been an incredible journey and continues to be more complicated each day. Everyone always tells you do what makes you happy! Well that sounds easy, until you have to define happy. I have lots of hobbies. Fishing, pilot's license, camping, biking, woodworking, gardening, bbq, friends, cars, and damn near anything outdoors. So in order to be successful in my quest, I had to define happy. In true consumer form, I tried new cars, boats, fishing gear, and attempted to buy happiness. Well that resulted in more work, to buy more gear, to be happier! Well now I had no time and no money to enjoy my happy devices. So... I decided to sell off the vast majority of my stuff, get down to bare bones and enjoy what I have. This was working out fine, but my employer was way happier with 65 hour a week me and really pissed at 38 hour a week me. Needless to say we agreed to disagree and he let me go. This is when the real lightbulb came on. I didn't need much to live on if I didn't owe anything. It was the most liberating time of my life. I met the love of my life, and got married. Next thing you know we have two kids and the debt started back up. I will never say that I wasn't happy during this time, but the freedom was definitely gone. It was about this time that I stumbled into the MMM blog. I wasn't able to go full stache, and quite frankly I still can't, but it made perfect sense. My DW was not excited. Honestly she still isn't but the rewards that are showing up is converting her over.
So I guess I am asking our community what makes you happy and what did you think made you happy but it was short lived and a waste?
Happy:
1. my canoe... Runs on me power and the kids love to go
2. my bike... self expanatory
3. camping... Costs very little and lets me see new places
4. Gardening. therapy that yields healthy food
5. Library Books. I read to my kids everyday and now the oldest is starting to read back
6. Playing cards. Euchre, hearts, spades. there is always a good card game at somebody's house
7. wood working. I'm always building something fun
Waste:
1. Big boat... It was really fun until the numbers came in...
2. Flying... Great life experience. EXPENSIVE
3. Fancy Cars... Not worth it
4. Restaurants... I found out that it's not that hard to cook really good food
5. Golf... Fun, but just not worth it to me anyways
6. Happy Hour. After a while we just started byob to a buddy's shop after work on Thursday.
Happy for me turned out to be time to do the things that I like, with the people I care about, and not killing myself to finance the whole adventure. I have a great balance and I am well on my way to early retirement.
