Hi all Mustachians!
My first post, not my first reading, I've been reading the blog and the forum for a while.
I wanted to share an idea that I have in my head and know your opinions, to see if this is possible or not.
As all of you, I've made my calculations, "how much to retire?", and I've got my number. Quite a lot, One million, to be retired both of us (me and my wife). Well, as all of you, I'm doing it, step by step.
But thinking on it, I thought: "What about to work part time?" and "what about to work one day less?" "Half day less?" and it took me to calculate how much is the cost , right now, of one hour of my time. So I thought, "what if I keep going just conquering first one hour, then two hours, etc, etc, until conquering the 40hours a week, like reaching milestones?".
I work in a Family Business, my partners are my father and my brother. This "hour thing" is just theoric, as long as we are pretty flexible and I have my schedule. But I depend on this salary and what I want is independence of this salary. We're okay working together, but for me is a lot of responsibility and I'm in a point in my life that, despite of being great with my partners/family, mentally need other things (I have to little kids, the second one just 5 months ago, so this is a huge change in priorities). So I just thought "I don't want to be dependant of this salary anymore, I want my time for my family, not being thinking of this or that customer or project or finance or whatsoever".
My first idea was this: I want to liberate not "one hour" literally but the equivalent of "one hour salary", then two, then three, until reaching 40. For family reasons, eventhough I'm a partner, I can't say now "I don't want to work" to my family, this has to come together with "I'm going to work one hour less, so I'm going to earn the equivalent of one hour less". It's the right thing to do, I guess.
If I do this, I will be partner anyway so if the business has benefits (and if it has benefits, due to my salary reduction) it will come back to me (40% of it), so it's not like saying "I rennounce" and losing it, I see it as an investment both in my free time and potentially in my future benefits.
My doubt is, how would the mathematics work if I want to conquer hour by hour? Because if I live on the return rates of one hour, then two hours, then three, I'm not making those returns growth.
I'm thinking on all of this and thinking if somebody made gradually the transition from downshifting to total freedom
Thanks for reading my story and doubts!
