What is the best strategy for gaining most freedom for adventures in your life?

[nancyjnelson]

You missed "Enter a profession that requires you to engage in your preferred adventures as a term of employment."  For me, my preferred adventures centered around international travel.  I worked for a government agency (Dept of State) that sent me overseas (with my family) to live and work for 11 of the 25 years of my career, and even while based in Washington I frequently went on short-term travel.  It wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea (I missed a lot of birthdays, weddings, funerals and other life events), but it worked for me.

 

[FallenTimber]

My family’s strategy has revolved around two components: establish multiple sources of passive income, and charge a premium rate for the hours you do have to work.

It has given us the opportunity to only work about 60 days per year. And even those 60 days are enjoyable days. My wife and I even get to spend them together.

I realized a while ago that trying to grind through a high-paying but miserable job so that I could reach 25x expenses just wasn’t the best route for me or my family. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice a single year of misery to do so, let alone the 10-15 it may require to get there.

Will we ever reach 25x expenses? Eventually, sure. But will our lives look any different once we do so? No. Because we’ve found a balance that is sustainable, both in terms of financial terms as well as our mental health.

I think it’s more important to build a lifestyle that is sustainable as opposed to living unsustainably for several years or decades with the naive notion that you’ll be happy once you hit a certain number.

[John Galt incarnate!]

I think the people who take so much time off in their younger years, will perhaps get in trouble at a later age. They build up very little pension and very little insurance in case they ever become disabled. Will this backfire very hard on them?

That taking "much time off in...younger years"  may backfire is the reason I did not choose it and do not commend it.

[John Galt incarnate!]

I voted "Mustachian",

So did I.

[John Galt incarnate!]

My family’s strategy has revolved around two components: establish multiple sources of passive income, and charge a premium rate for the hours you do have to work.

It has given us the opportunity to only work about 60 days per year. And even those 60 days are enjoyable days. My wife and I even get to spend them together.

I realized a while ago that trying to grind through a high-paying but miserable job so that I could reach 25x expenses just wasn’t the best route for me or my family. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice a single year of misery to do so, let alone the 10-15 it may require to get there.

Will we ever reach 25x expenses? Eventually, sure. But will our lives look any different once we do so? No. Because we’ve found a balance that is sustainable, both in terms of financial terms as well as our mental health.

I think it’s more important to build a lifestyle that is sustainable as opposed to living unsustainably for several years or decades with the naive notion that you’ll be happy once you hit a certain number.

My in-process quest for the "certain number" was not to enable any  particular sort of adventuring though my imaginations of  my future life as a FIREee (daydreams) included trips to national parks. Now I live only ~35 miles from the entrance to Yosemite National Park so when I go there it is a daydream come true.

As to choice of strategy, since my early adolescence heightened awareness of life's temporal dimension and its finitude has motivated me to be a  very disciplined, goal-focused individual, which,  coupled with my enjoyment of financial math,  fits well with the poll's Mu$tachian  strategy.

[John Galt incarnate!]

For me freedom has to do with being able to organize your time as you want, not having to be back on a certain date because of a job. Therefore, being in a job is not full freedom.

'Tis true.



I think the normal Mustachian way, alternated with a sabbatical here and there, could be a nice way.

Yes.

The ski bum type of adventurers who do talks or who blog, often make their life look very exciting. But I most often think about that they don't build up anything.

Some of the adventurous  called "park bums" spend lots of time in national parks.

I am also a homebody who likes to be able to come home to my own place and my own things.

I am the same. My home is my "base of operations."  The security and control of owning my home is a liberty; without it I could not be happy.