Author Topic: What strategies and attitudes were most helpful to you when you quit?  (Read 2182 times)

Trudie

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My husband and I have determined that we have "FU" money, and so I plan to leave a job I've been at for ten years this spring.  In doing so I will be giving up a 45-minute (each way) commute, a job that is no-longer satisfying, a job that is a time suck on the rest of my life, and a job that is not contributing to my health (desk job, back pain, etc.)  I will also be shutting off the firehose of cash that comes with it which -- frankly -- has been my reason for staying with it up to this point.  I am a finance/accounting manager for a small company.

I'm curious about specific strategies (money-saving, emotional, personal development) others have used to successfully make the transition?  What did you do to thrive from the change?

In addition, I'm not convinced that my working days are completely over because -- health insurance.  But, for now, my husband has a professional job as a college administrator and has benefits.

aperture

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Re: What strategies and attitudes were most helpful to you when you quit?
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2017, 06:59:33 AM »
Trudie, I am in similar boat as you and am partly posting to follow, but I also want to turn you onto this blog if you are not familiar:https://ournextlife.com/.  Tanja is truly a great thinker/planner in this space and I have enjoyed her articles dealing with future FIRE life.  Best wishes, aperture.

edit: spelling
« Last Edit: October 29, 2017, 07:57:38 AM by aperture »

SwordGuy

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Re: What strategies and attitudes were most helpful to you when you quit?
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2017, 09:43:54 AM »
Having FU money just means you can afford to not have a bad job for awhile.

It certainly does not mean you don't have to work again, that would be FI money.

So, what are you going to be doing while your spouse goes to work each day?

Frankies Girl

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Re: What strategies and attitudes were most helpful to you when you quit?
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2017, 11:26:46 AM »
Look around at places you might want to work at and see if they're hiring.

Find a charity or non-profit group and see if they're hiring. If not, consider volunteering your services (not just as a regular volunteer) for a few hours a week. Or just do a regular volunteer gig.

Find a job that is wildly different than what you currently do but you always sort of thought about as maybe fun to do for a while or might be interesting to learn.



Non-job related stuff:
Give yourself some time to detox. You're going to feel weird after a week or two, as even the most in-touch with their feelings type of person still ties up some of their identity with their job description. And if you've been under stress, it will take you longer to work that crud out of your system.

Try to stay on a basic schedule - sleeping/waking, eating meals, basic chores and errands. I didn't, and I screwed myself over big time once I started wanting to be relatively normal again. Took me months to reset the sleeping/waking thing, and I'm still having major issues getting my ass moving in the mornings to do things I really want to do.

Find a few things that you enjoy hobby-wise and try to work on them a few times a week.

Hang out with friends/family whenever the opportunity presents itself (and you feel like it). Don't isolate yourself from interacting with others. If you don't have close family/friends that you enjoy seeing, then definitely look into volunteering or working part time so you have face to face interactions. I'm actually a hermit but I still try to do things where I'm in contact with people, doing the chat thing. Interacting with people other than your spouse keeps you from overly depending on him to be your only real social outlet (that gets old fast, even if you like being by yourself mostly).

Go take a walk or do something exercise-y once a day. Doesn't have to be crazy, nice stroll around the block or go for a fun bike ride, play some mini golf or toss a ball around for the dog or something. Taking it easy right after your exit isn't terrible, but don't lapse into total lethargy for longer than a week or two, because it's crazy hard to restart being active if your butt gets used to the couch and playing around on the computer and passively watching the TV. (another mistake I made)

I loved planning meals and capitalizing on the sales for our food stuff. I would gather up all the sales papers and mark which stores had specific things I wanted to make and stocked up on things on super sale. I charted out days/times that worked best to have the store pretty empty and learned when certain stores marked their stuff to clearance and made out like a bandit on normally higher priced items (pork tenderloin for under $1/lb.!!)

Along with the above, I taught myself how to cook healthier and started eating down our pantry. I realized that unless it was a phenomenal deal, I don't need to stockpile since I could literally go shopping any time of day as long as the stores were open, so I got better about food waste and storing and over-buying as well.


Trudie

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Re: What strategies and attitudes were most helpful to you when you quit?
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2017, 05:05:08 PM »
Llamo - The organization requires 2 weeks.  I'm planning to give them 4 since I am in a management position.  I have some anxiety about what I "owe" them and I think even more so since I'm not going to another position.

My predecessor gave them 2 weeks, then was strongarmed into 4.  I sort of feel like I'm giving them better than I got when I came into the position.

Freedomin5

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Re: What strategies and attitudes were most helpful to you when you quit?
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2017, 06:07:51 PM »
You don't owe them anything. They certainly don't think that they owe you.

Emotionally, you need enough activity to feel like you accomplished something each day, but not to the point that you feel  stressed out.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!