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

[Linea_Norway]

Hi.

I sometimes see young outdoorsy adventurers who make impressive journeys and scrape by in the time between the journeys. They sometimes live in their car, keeping their expenses as low as possible and try to earn some money and get some sponsors to pay for their next trip. They also typically blog about their adventures and have talks. Some ski bums have the same strategy. Work a bit in the summer and let it finance the winter.

Most of use Mustachians do the opposite: working fulltime first and saving up for freedom later, in some cases at a not so young age anymore. In my case, very close to 50.

I think that if you manage to FIRE in your early thirties, that you still have a whole life, good health and lots of adventures ahead of you. If you FIRE in your fifties, life is far from over, but you have spent your best (fittest) years in a cubicle, only doing your outdoorsy stuff in the weekends and vacations. You might have fewer years left to do the fun stuff.

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? Personally, I would dislike having to be depending on sponsors for each trip. This would add a additional stress to the trip.

For a young, outdoor person, what would be the best strategy for gaining as much freedom in your life as possible? Ski bum style (work just enough to finance a lot of time off) or Mustachian style (study, work and earn, FIRE)?

Let's not include options like marrying a rich person and receiving a big inheritance.
I added some more alternatives, which are real options: work part time to improve your everyday life. Or taking many sabbaticals.

[MrThatsDifferent]

You’ve missed one: be a part time post-grad student, while working part time and living overseas. Between student perks, school holidays, low expectations, roommates and the ability to have fun and go with the flow, you can enjoy life almost anywhere with the most freedom and least responsibilities. Then, you graduate and get a high paying job and go the FIRE route. If you’re really clever and switched on, you’ll save and invest along the way.

[Linea_Norway]

You’ve missed one: be a part time post-grad student, while working part time and living overseas. Between student perks, school holidays, low expectations, roommates and the ability to have fun and go with the flow, you can enjoy life almost anywhere with the most freedom and least responsibilities. Then, you graduate and get a high paying job and go the FIRE route. If you’re really clever and switched on, you’ll save and invest along the way.

I added it.

[lexde]

I debated going to law school. I was going to go teach English in Seoul with a friend of mine. He went. I didn’t.

I graduated from college with an English degree and not a penny of debt to my name. I could have gone, taught English, learned Korean, and had a grand adventure for a year or two and then re-assessed. Room and board paid, money was not good but expenses were also low.

It would have been an incredible adventure. But I had other incredible adventures. In law school over a summer I lived in China. I traveled 1-2 weeks at a time between semesters and try to still travel once a year.

I think though that teaching English in a “cram school” or equivalent would be a good way to expand your horizons and not break the bank. You’d break even financially, but would come back to the states with a good grasp of another language if you put even a modicum of effort into learning it. For what it’s worth, my friend got married there and stayed. So he’s an expat now, but even going for 1-3 years would be a nice way to do both

[LifeHappens]

I think your choices of PT work while making enough to save for retirement and FT work with sabbaticals offer the best combination of leisure time and saving for the future. There are good threads on both on the board.

I personally am working PT as a contractor. I average about 6 hours of work per day, 5 days per week but I can vary my schedule around my other activities as needed. This is a good arrangement for me. I still save some money for retirement and have time to exercise, explore and generally enjoy my life.

[big_slacker]

I feel like people make a lot of excuses in terms of adventure when they're fully employed. You can make it happen. Even in my 40's now with kids, mortgage, full time gig in the last year I did 3 weeks in europe with the family, a nice 4 day MTB, 4 day mountain/rafting family trip, 1 week in CO solo slaying powder and my wife did a solo vacation in Vegas. This year it's looking like the wifey will be hitting Japan, family in vegas while I MTB and climbing, I'm gonna do a tahoe/overlanding trip in summer and I have some big endurance event planned. I can do this for a few reasons. A big one is because I'm in my peak earning years and can do this while still saving for FIRE. The second is because I make it a priority exactly because I don't want to reach mid 50's FIRE and wish I'd done all this awesome stuff when I was younger. Also worth noting I'm out having fun not just on weekends. I work early and get out on the trails/mountain 3-4 times a week. Vacation is for bigger trips. :D

Outdoor adventure is a huge part of my life and I don't think you have to put it in neat boxes. Blur that shit!

FWIW I did the snowboad bum thing all of my 20's. I don't feel like it hurt me. It helped. I did so much awesome stuff and worked out a lot of my dumbass kid tendencies. I was fully focused and had my shit together when I was READY to start a career and it took off fast. I'm still on track to be done with this work stuff before 'normal' retirement age.

[FreelanceToFreedom]

Another option is to freelance part time and have flexible working hours. Many also do the digital nomad thing and travel long-term to cheap countries to take advantage of the cost of the living differences. I'm currently testing this lifestyle out myself!

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I voted for "ski bum style". Realistically, if I had a thorough understanding of FIRE and was committed to achieve it when I entered the workforce at the age of 25, I would likely be retired by now (or close to it). So, for someone who doesn't waste 5-10 years in a directionless rat race right out of college, that's probably the best option. I made some bad decisions in the first 5 years out of college that put me 10 years behind schedule. Had I chosen instead to live a ski bum lifestyle right out of college, I'd have avoided saddling myself with a crushing burden of mortgage debt on a rapidly-depreciating house, and I would have enjoyed more freedom overall - which was my reasoning behing choosing the ski bum lifestyle. In other words, the freedom is guaranteed if you choose to bum it right out of school. If I had started from square one at age 30 after 5 years of bumming, I'd have still been better off than starting with tens of thousands in debt from buying a shitty overpriced asset at the peak of the housing market. I wasted 5 years of my youth that I really wish I could get back.

[mathlete]

I voted "mustachian". I'm an 8-5er. I get 4+ weeks of vacation a year though, which is more than enough time for adventure IMO. I love travel, but I usually get homesick after more than a week.

[GuitarStv]

It all depends on what you consider an adventure and what you consider freedom.

I work a full time job, and my life is full of adventure.  This means seeing and meeting up with friends, family, going on long bike rides from city to city, and occasionally racing in the summer, playing live music, and raising my son.  If I felt that life was miserable and boring, it wouldn't be possible to continue grinding away through it.

That's pretty exciting to me, but isn't at the level of "I'm going to drop everything and bum around on a beach in Thailand between doing Muay Thai fights, then have sex with under age girls at night for several years of my 20s" . . . which a friend of mine did.  My friend was undoubtedly more free than I was during that time.  I think I'm more free than he is now (kinda broke, with little career path).  He has better stories of adventures than I'm ever likely to have . . . but I suspect that I'll have more actual adventure experiences as the years go on.  His adventures were more exciting than mine.  Which is "better"?  That depends on how you view things I guess.

[Hirondelle]

I voted FT + sabatticals however I think all options could work totally depending on what your idea of 'most freedom/adventures' is.

My idea of freedom and adventures includes LOTS of travel. I do take short trips within Europe and longer trips to Asia while working now, but once you've done the one-way ticket thing without a plan (3+ months I'd say) 3 weeks is just... nothing. Sure I can tick the tourist hotspot boxes, but I can't get to know a place or its people. I know people who say they've seen [insert any country, let's use Thailand as an example here] in 2 weeks. I've been 5 weeks and I feel like I barely got a feel of the place as I didn't even tick all the tourist boxes yet in that time, let alone get in touch with people or get to more remote/off the beaten track places.

3-6 month sabbaticals would be my ideal way to get a chance to do this sort of travel without breaking the bank or being stuck in low-paying ski-bum style jobs. After 6 months I get the itch to do something again and will find employment regardless of whether I urgently need money or not.

The digital nomad/remote work lifestyle also appeals to me as it does allow for extensive travel, but does not exclude the option of a home base. However working all the time while traveling might be a bit too demanding. Maybe digital nomad life while staying in one place, then take a sabbatical from that lifestyle to move around again?

However to get back to the point I made at the top of my response and also the point GuitarStv makes; it totally depends on your desires. To my brother for instance this lifestyle would have 0 appeal even though he also a similar drive to become FI.

[use2betrix]

I think there are a lot of very viable options, but it doesn’t seem everyone has the availability of all the options. For one, many people would have a hard time finding part time work that offers pensions.

In a large sense the “work enough to get by” lifestyle is appealing for many, however it also mostly means that you are going to be doing that for a very long time since you are just scraping by, you aren’t saving a lot.

I currently fit the “FT + sabbaticals” option to a T. I am a contract worker in the Oil & Gas industry, so I typically work a project, then get laid off. When I am working, it’s often 60-80 hour weeks, and I’m hourly or day rate, so I’m earning a ton of extra money while I am working, and then usually working so much I can hardly spend it on travel cause I don’t like to take much time off while working.

It took a long time in my industry to get to the point I was making and saving enough to take sabbaticals. In 2017 I only worked 4.5 months out of the year for about 50 hours a week, and my net worth still grew. We took sabbaticals the other 7.5 months. Two months in Asia, 3 weeks in Baja via motorcycle, and 2 months on an 8000 mile camping trip where we camped every night but 3 (in which we stayed at a friends.

I have been back working since December 2017. I took a week off over the holidays to see family, but very very minimal time off otherwise. The good news is, working all last year my net worth grew about $140k, which would be enough to take about 2.5 years of comfortable spending off, while still breaking even. This year, if the market doesn’t drop at all, I’ll save about $180k, or enough to take approximately 3 years off to break even.

My current contract is slated to end in June 2020, but may extend another year. My income is high enough that I certainly won’t just “leave” a great job to take sabbaticals, but I’m full and ready for the contract to end whenever that happens. Worst case scenario is this job would keep going and I would be fully FIRE in around 5 years at 35. Although, with my career, I think even if I’m at a comfy FIRE income, I’ll continue to work contract jobs 2-3 months a year for an extra decade or two just for the extra padding, extra travel, maybe some fun toys (snowmobiles??) etc.

[scottish]

FT + sabbaticals is definitely the way to go.    (I'm no longer young, but I did this twice when I was young.)

It's great if you can FIRE in your 30's.   But much can happen in the following 50 years, and some of it may require you go back to work.    With planned sabbaticals and returning to work you have much more influence on what, when and where.

[CheapScholar]

I also did law school and managed to have fun along the way.  Now I’m 10 years post law school and I’m an academic.  I’m resolved to work until I’m 50.  What’s nice about not being a lawyer and leisurely floating through life as an academic is that I can pretty much do what I want and I have more than ample time off to see what I want to see.  I don’t go on ultra luxury vacations, fly first class, eat at the best restaurants.  But I have the time and funding to visit national parks, and bum around western Michigan beaches all summer.

I’m “professional faculty” so I don’t get the coveted “sabbatical” that tenure track faculty get.  Although, all the faculty I know on those sabbaticals are busy as hell writing and trying to publish.  Those sabbaticals aren’t as sweet as they sound.  I’d rather have my 4 weeks vacation, 2 week Xmas break and other holidays. 

[Zikoris]

I voted "Mustachian", but I think going more in the "Early Retirement Extreme" direction and retiring at 30-ish would be the optimal solution.

We're actually doing something like that ourselves, though we're looking at retiring at ages 33 and 35 rather than 30 since we started a few years later than we could have. For the time being, we manage to cram in a surprising amount of adventures even while saving 65%+ of our solidly average incomes - right now we're 30 and 32, and have been to 30 countries and have done so much fun stuff. SO I highly recommend this strategy.

[undercover]

A hybrid between 2/4:

"Traditional" - spend your twenties "getting your shit together". Learn plenty of life skills and as much about finances as you can (even though this will be lifelong) and then build your career enough to get to "base FIRE" and enough to go on some adventures. Being a ski bum never appealed to me but I also think it's a totally valid option so long as you eventually know you'll get your crap together eventually. I personally would not want that looming over me though - I just would want to get it over sooner than later. But, again, I think it's a totally valid choice and there are people on this forum that spent their 20's doing not much and then "got their shit together" in their 30's. I totally don't think you need to start in your twenties, just that if you have anxiety like me it helps to go ahead and do it.

At this point you'll have the freedom to alternate between FT work and sabbaticals. The FT work would add to the stash and also fund more adventures.

And you could certainly sprinkle PT work in somewhere as well during your adventures if you wanted. The PT work could help supplement your adventure funds.

If I had a great life partner on the same page as me I would want to travel all over with an online business. I have no interest in traveling long term alone.

[Linea_Norway]

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.

We have also had many adventures, at least what I consider is such. Mostly hiking trips (or canoe trips or road trips) to different areas. I have been in most parts of the country and in some other countries. We could do this beside a normal full time job. Once we took a 3 month sabbatical to see what that was like. We did a lot on those 13 weeks. Travel to different places and renovating a bathroom.

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

The ski bum type of adventurers who do talks or who blog, often make their life look very exciting. And I am a bit envious of them. But I most often think about that they don't build up anything. I am also a homebody who likes to be able to come home to my own place and my own things. To be able to ever buy such a place, you need to build up some means. Also, to be able to eventually FIRE for good, you need a period with good earning to do so. The earlier you take the FIRE approach serious, the sooner you can steer your life in the desired direction.

Even though DH and I have been frugal for the last 20 years and were loosely interested in FIRE at 50, we weren't focussed it. We just lived normally, with a reasonably good savings rate of 50K a year. But we did spend money on a brand new car twice and we ended up buying our current clown house, instead of keeping money in the stock market. Without that, we could probably have been FIREd already. Now I need an additional 1-1,5 year.

[nemesis]

The only one that makes sense for the vast majority is "Mustachian" lifestyle.

The reason is kids.  If you have kids, and even if you wanted to, you couldn't just go on a 2 months sabbatical and leave them on their own for school.

So it makes most sense to live the Mustachian lifestyle, go on occasional vacations with the kids / family during spring break / summer, spend time with the relatives during the holidays, during the first 0-18 years of the kids' lives.

So might as well work a regular job, save a ton of money, and when the kids are finally gone from home, then consider doing whatever you want (typically 40's or 50's age).

[Hirondelle]

The only one that makes sense for the vast majority is "Mustachian" lifestyle.

The reason is kids.  If you have kids, and even if you wanted to, you couldn't just go on a 2 months sabbatical and leave them on their own for school.

So it makes most sense to live the Mustachian lifestyle, go on occasional vacations with the kids / family during spring break / summer, spend time with the relatives during the holidays, during the first 0-18 years of the kids' lives.

So might as well work a regular job, save a ton of money, and when the kids are finally gone from home, then consider doing whatever you want (typically 40's or 50's age).

Kids have summer holidays. If you can take a sabbatical during the summer holiday that would actually make perfect sense. Plus sabbaticals do not need to include overseas travel/far away travels.

Plus not everyone has kids. And people that do have kids don't always have them from their early 20s onwards :)

[nemesis]

The only one that makes sense for the vast majority is "Mustachian" lifestyle.

The reason is kids.  If you have kids, and even if you wanted to, you couldn't just go on a 2 months sabbatical and leave them on their own for school.

So it makes most sense to live the Mustachian lifestyle, go on occasional vacations with the kids / family during spring break / summer, spend time with the relatives during the holidays, during the first 0-18 years of the kids' lives.

So might as well work a regular job, save a ton of money, and when the kids are finally gone from home, then consider doing whatever you want (typically 40's or 50's age).

Kids have summer holidays. If you can take a sabbatical during the summer holiday that would actually make perfect sense. Plus sabbaticals do not need to include overseas travel/far away travels.

Plus not everyone has kids. And people that do have kids don't always have them from their early 20s onwards :)

Not really practical.   Summer time is when travel costs are the highest, as every family is going on vacation.  I'd rather not travel for extended periods of time when most other people are doing it. 

Plus, kids have summer activities, sports, classes, and other things that come up. Not to mention going to visit grandma / grandpa / relatives since there is so little free time the rest of the year. 

So to be realistic, the best way is to defer extended travel until one is no longer tied to the school calendar, and travel during off-peak times.  My older relatives are on a cruise right now, paying 1/2 or less of what someone would pay during the summer time, especially in Europe where everyone takes July / August off.

To maximize earnings / savings, the mustachian way is most practical for most families, imho.  Those that do not have kids, of course are far more flexible and free.

[Lmoot]

I voted “Full time with sabbatical”. In my case it wasn’t a sabbatical, I just quit my job after 5 years and took a break from working full time for 8 months: rented my house out, spent some time traveling and staying  in Africa. Came back to the states and for the rest of the time worked part time and did a seasonal stint as a tour guide (something I always wanted to try).

I would like to take another break soon. I would modify the choice to fit my life: Work Full time with sabbaticals, but also keep a part time job on the side (that has a pension as a bonus), preferably a part time job that doesn’t mind you taking long breaks away. And have a passive stream of income which in my case is my rental property. And a fat ass efund.

I don’t want to retire very early. I am mid-30’s and don’t earn enough to retire early enough, for that to be an exciting enough prospect. Retire at 60 instead of 67? Woo, I guess? Also I like physical outdoor adventures too. My next break I hope to take another trip to Africa, explore some America, and complete a thru hike of a National Trail.

My feeling is, full lifespans are no guarantee and I don’t want to hoarde all my chips until the end.

[Dances With Fire]

In my younger years I took a couple of sabbaticals...No regrets.

Traveled the country and then spent time with family, friends, and hobbies.

[big_slacker]

The ski bum type of adventurers who do talks or who blog, often make there live look very exciting. And I am a bit envious of them.

Look, as someone who has done that you're getting the highlights. I left home with $150 in my pocket and a car, yes the absolute freedom and adventures are awesome. Doing odd jobs and getting paid in weed (when you don't smoke, how to I convert this to $$ again??) or running the heater and pissing in a bottle in your car cause it's too cold to go outside....? Worrying about money running out, trying to figure out how to fix your broken car/house, living on friend's couches and wondering when you reach the tipping point between they're glad to see me and go riding vs their girlfriend stabbing you in your sleep cause you won't leave. Finding a place to sleep where cops/security guards/ski resort operators aren't going to kick you out and on and on.

Or in the case of the folks who do it as a 'job'. A popular MTB youtuber said his 12 hours of video editing was keeping him from riding, he can't 'just ride' cause he has to set up cameras, swap batteries, wear a ridiculous gimbal rig all the time, talk constantly during the rides and so on.

No free lunch, there are tradeoffs to all your choices. :D

[Linea_Norway]

The ski bum type of adventurers who do talks or who blog, often make there live their life look very exciting. And I am a bit envious of them.

Look, as someone who has done that you're getting the highlights. I left home with $150 in my pocket and a car, yes the absolute freedom and adventures are awesome. Doing odd jobs and getting paid in weed (when you don't smoke, how to I convert this to $$ again??) or running the heater and pissing in a bottle in your car cause it's too cold to go outside....? Worrying about money running out, trying to figure out how to fix your broken car/house, living on friend's couches and wondering when you reach the tipping point between they're glad to see me and go riding vs their girlfriend stabbing you in your sleep cause you won't leave. Finding a place to sleep where cops/security guards/ski resort operators aren't going to kick you out and on and on.

Or in the case of the folks who do it as a 'job'. A popular MTB youtuber said his 12 hours of video editing was keeping him from riding, he can't 'just ride' cause he has to set up cameras, swap batteries, wear a ridiculous gimbal rig all the time, talk constantly during the rides and so on.

No free lunch, there are tradeoffs to all your choices. :D

That was exactly what I thought. Living on others (in their houses) feels very intruding.

I have seen pictures of such a person. He does camp on all the beautiful places, alone in the mountains. But he cannot relax before he has taken the perfect picture of himself making a spectacular jump on photo. He often needs to jump many times before the photo is perfect and ready for blogging.

There is also a case of such an adventurer who wanted to climb the Everest. His sponsor would only pay if he reached top. There was a lot of trouble on the way up that year. This person told the world that he did summit, while many witnessed said otherwise. He is now considered a liar, even the court has concluded that it is not insulting to call him a liar. This means that is you are depending on sponsors to do your stuff, you are always doing it on their conditions, with a risk of failing.

[nemesis]

...
My feeling is, full lifespans are no guarantee and I don’t want to hoarde all my chips until the end.

This is not a helpful attitude to have, imho.   We are living in the golden age of civilization.  Death rates are falling to all-time lows, modern medicine / conveniences have made the probability of your life span to a ripe old age a near certainty.  The major causes of death now are car accidents, and mostly controllable life style choices that minimize or maximize long term diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, etc.

Chances are, you are going to live to a ripe old age.  Like the actuaries who calculate actual odds of you living a full life, I look at my life as a 99% chance I'll live beyond 70 / 80 years of age.  I go to the gym regularly, eat nutritious healthy food, and pile to my stashe so I can enjoy my mid to later years in life.

I busted my butt to build up my career / finances in my 20 - 40's age in life, and have a quite nice situation now where I am at my career peak, and can FIRE if I choose. 

Could accidents happen? Sure... but that's a rare scenario and I'd rather live the most probable scenario - I'll live to a ripe old age and enjoy my money and stashe.

I do enjoy things now and then, but I am saving my major bucket list items for a few more years when I can take the foot off the gas pedal and slow down.

[undercover]

^ I agree with what you're saying, but it doesn't really make your time any less valuable (in the sense that you are going to die and you want to enjoy your life). More time on earth just means I have more time to go in and out of work. Human lifespans are irrelevant blips on the timeline of the universe. Basically, just balance. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Plus, I'd just rather be doing some things in my twenties and thirties than forties and fifties. I've intentionally delayed having kids and a family for this reason, but I still think it's totally possible to take plenty of sabbaticals with kids. You don't necessarily have to travel far for an adventure.

[Lmoot]

...
My feeling is, full lifespans are no guarantee and I don’t want to hoarde all my chips until the end.

This is not a helpful attitude to have, imho.   We are living in the golden age of civilization.  Death rates are falling to all-time lows, modern medicine / conveniences have made the probability of your life span to a ripe old age a near certainty.  The major causes of death now are car accidents, and mostly controllable life style choices that minimize or maximize long term diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, etc.

Chances are, you are going to live to a ripe old age.  Like the actuaries who calculate actual odds of you living a full life, I look at my life as a 99% chance I'll live beyond 70 / 80 years of age.  I go to the gym regularly, eat nutritious healthy food, and pile to my stashe so I can enjoy my mid to later years in life.

I busted my butt to build up my career / finances in my 20 - 40's age in life, and have a quite nice situation now where I am at my career peak, and can FIRE if I choose. 

Could accidents happen? Sure... but that's a rare scenario and I'd rather live the most probable scenario - I'll live to a ripe old age and enjoy my money and stashe.

I do enjoy things now and then, but I am saving my major bucket list items for a few more years when I can take the foot off the gas pedal and slow down.

Not helpful towards what? It helps me because I had a long run of working for the future, to the point that I wasn’t cultivating my present self. I woke up one day and realized that FIRE’ing wasn’t going to magically jettison me through a fast-track metamorphosis into the person I always imagined myself being when I retired. I am more likely to enjoy myself in the future by ensuring I have things to look back on, and previous experiences to guide me towards or away from future endeavors.

And being able to be kept alive longer via modern medicine, is both a blessing and a curse to individuals and society. Parents are outliving their children, or are living on into their children’s twilight years, when they themselves are needing to manage their own age-related diseases in addition to their parent’s. Longevity is not my goal, quality is. I fully intend on implementing a DNR he earliest it makes sense...even possibly go as far as creating a fund and making it known that when my quality of life is so greatly diminished that I’d rather not be alive, I want to be euthanized.

[ericrugiero]

I chose mustachian but obviously ski bum and FT with sabbaticals has some advantages as well.  To me, the key is to find some type of work that either you enjoy so much you are happy doing it long term, or you make a good salary so you can save towards freedom.

[nemesis]

...
My feeling is, full lifespans are no guarantee and I don’t want to hoarde all my chips until the end.

This is not a helpful attitude to have, imho.   We are living in the golden age of civilization.  Death rates are falling to all-time lows, modern medicine / conveniences have made the probability of your life span to a ripe old age a near certainty.  The major causes of death now are car accidents, and mostly controllable life style choices that minimize or maximize long term diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, etc.

Chances are, you are going to live to a ripe old age.  Like the actuaries who calculate actual odds of you living a full life, I look at my life as a 99% chance I'll live beyond 70 / 80 years of age.  I go to the gym regularly, eat nutritious healthy food, and pile to my stashe so I can enjoy my mid to later years in life.

I busted my butt to build up my career / finances in my 20 - 40's age in life, and have a quite nice situation now where I am at my career peak, and can FIRE if I choose. 

Could accidents happen? Sure... but that's a rare scenario and I'd rather live the most probable scenario - I'll live to a ripe old age and enjoy my money and stashe.

I do enjoy things now and then, but I am saving my major bucket list items for a few more years when I can take the foot off the gas pedal and slow down.

Not helpful towards what? It helps me because I had a long run of working for the future, to the point that I wasn’t cultivating my present self. I woke up one day and realized that FIRE’ing wasn’t going to magically jettison me through a fast-track metamorphosis into the person I always imagined myself being when I retired. I am more likely to enjoy myself in the future by ensuring I have things to look back on, and previous experiences to guide me towards or away from future endeavors.

And being able to be kept alive longer via modern medicine, is both a blessing and a curse to individuals and society. Parents are outliving their children, or are living on into their children’s twilight years, when they themselves are needing to manage their own age-related diseases in addition to their parent’s. Longevity is not my goal, quality is. I fully intend on implementing a DNR he earliest it makes sense...even possibly go as far as creating a fund and making it known that when my quality of life is so greatly diminished that I’d rather not be alive, I want to be euthanized.

I don't rely on medicine. There is way more knowledge about nutrition, health, and how to live a healthy lifestyle to stay well into old age.

We have more control over our future than ever.  The news makes it seem otherwise.  We have more information than ever, more options / activities in life than ever.

So I choose to enjoy life but add to my stashe with the 99% certainty I'll be living well in my 70's / 80's. I don't want to be in my 70's / 80's and be broke or diseased, unlike many people I see and know.

I do acknowledge that accidents / things happen, which is why I have life insurance and health insurance.  However, I rarely think that "life is not guaranteed and I could die any day"... because the reality is we will live well into our 70's and 80's easily.  How we live those years is up to us.

[jlcnuke]

If this was my goal, I'd go the skilled contractor route. Many people have careers which involve working for a much higher wage than their 9-5 compatriots, but which involve long hours and employment that is sporadic. I know in my industry (power generation), many people do "outage work", where they work 6 or 7 days per week, generally 12 hours per day, for very good money plus tax-free per diem, but the jobs last 3-12 weeks on average. They'll put together enough jobs to work 4-8 months each year and have the rest of the year off to do whatever they want. They'll often travel with a travel trailer (the per diem will pay for one in about 2-3 months worth of work) for both work (minimizing costs while working) and for recreation (travel the country cheaply).

[Padonak]

Ptf

[Metalcat]

...
My feeling is, full lifespans are no guarantee and I don’t want to hoarde all my chips until the end.

This is not a helpful attitude to have, imho.   We are living in the golden age of civilization.  Death rates are falling to all-time lows, modern medicine / conveniences have made the probability of your life span to a ripe old age a near certainty.  The major causes of death now are car accidents, and mostly controllable life style choices that minimize or maximize long term diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, etc.

Chances are, you are going to live to a ripe old age.  Like the actuaries who calculate actual odds of you living a full life, I look at my life as a 99% chance I'll live beyond 70 / 80 years of age.  I go to the gym regularly, eat nutritious healthy food, and pile to my stashe so I can enjoy my mid to later years in life.

I busted my butt to build up my career / finances in my 20 - 40's age in life, and have a quite nice situation now where I am at my career peak, and can FIRE if I choose. 

Could accidents happen? Sure... but that's a rare scenario and I'd rather live the most probable scenario - I'll live to a ripe old age and enjoy my money and stashe.

I do enjoy things now and then, but I am saving my major bucket list items for a few more years when I can take the foot off the gas pedal and slow down.

Not helpful towards what? It helps me because I had a long run of working for the future, to the point that I wasn’t cultivating my present self. I woke up one day and realized that FIRE’ing wasn’t going to magically jettison me through a fast-track metamorphosis into the person I always imagined myself being when I retired. I am more likely to enjoy myself in the future by ensuring I have things to look back on, and previous experiences to guide me towards or away from future endeavors.

And being able to be kept alive longer via modern medicine, is both a blessing and a curse to individuals and society. Parents are outliving their children, or are living on into their children’s twilight years, when they themselves are needing to manage their own age-related diseases in addition to their parent’s. Longevity is not my goal, quality is. I fully intend on implementing a DNR he earliest it makes sense...even possibly go as far as creating a fund and making it known that when my quality of life is so greatly diminished that I’d rather not be alive, I want to be euthanized.

I don't rely on medicine. There is way more knowledge about nutrition, health, and how to live a healthy lifestyle to stay well into old age.

We have more control over our future than ever.  The news makes it seem otherwise.  We have more information than ever, more options / activities in life than ever.

So I choose to enjoy life but add to my stashe with the 99% certainty I'll be living well in my 70's / 80's. I don't want to be in my 70's / 80's and be broke or diseased, unlike many people I see and know.

I do acknowledge that accidents / things happen, which is why I have life insurance and health insurance.  However, I rarely think that "life is not guaranteed and I could die any day"... because the reality is we will live well into our 70's and 80's easily.  How we live those years is up to us.

um...just because you are likely to live a long life doesn't mean that having an attitude of living for today is "not helpful"

I get it, you're super outcome oriented and driven. That's cool, you do you.
However, for many of us, we've learned that the path of being ultra-over-achievers can be kind of shitty and not necessarily worth it.

Sure, for people who lack drive, not focusing on the future is detrimental. However, for some of us, it's exactly what the doctor ordered...like literally, our therapists have made us work on living more in the moment and focusing less on the future because being high achieving and outcome oriented can easily become highly pathological.

So yeah, for some of us, embracing that life is in fact short, and focusing a hell of a lot more on today than tomorrow is absolutely very helpful and highly productive. And for many of us, it actually frees up our psychological energy to do surprisingly more productive work because we've stopped focusing on being productive.
It's really fun when that happens.

As for the OP's question: there is no "best" strategy. It all depends on personal factors. What's liberating and adventurous for one is risky and cumbersome for another, and vice versa. It takes a lot of introspection and critical thinking to figure out what the hell to do with your time.

[BicycleB]

I think Malkynn's "you do you" is key here. Meaning, the "best" strategy depends on the person.

I have a cousin who has a strong desire to be out and about surfing, hiking, traveling. He lived ERE for three years after college while working an entry-level tech job. Then he hit the road, using his five-figure savings as a base.

I think his plan was to attempt permanent play/travel in the outdoors on his investment income, while experimenting with the blog thing. I can't tell whether the blog makes money, but he's been thrift-traveling for years now, gaining a romantic traveling companion along the way.

His dad did something similar before blogs and came out fine. Cousin has More Skills and will be more than fine, I think.

If your biggest feeling is a desire for security, go Mustache and lock down that stash. Mix in adventures where possible. If your biggest feeling is for Outdoors Now, find an outdoor path that allows you to cover expenses and possibly save. Just don't reach 40 with no skills and no plan. That's a good way to become a tired dishwasher (I've met one or two of those).

[robartsd]

I wouldn't want to start out as a snow bum because there is tremendous advantage to compounding returns. But once a good size investment is working for my later retirement, cutting back to enjoy life young wouldn't be bad. If I were and adventurous person on the cusp of adulthood (knowing what I now know about personal finance) I would get a good start to a career saving a ton and fighting lifestyle inflation like the plague (conventional mustachian option) for a few years. Once I'd established enough in retirement funds that I expected compounding will grow it to at least baseline FI by the time I reached 65, I'd relax about earning as much as possible and figure out a balance between earning at least enough for my current needs (with a continued ~10% savings rate towards retirement) and my desire for freedom.

[driftwood]

So many factors to each one of those options that it would be hard to vote for one. Here's my opinion as an outdoorsy person (actually have a Bachelor's in Wilderness Leadership), and as a military member. I've game-planned a lot of options as time has gone on. This advice would be for an American just graduating high school looking for a general path:

If I could do it all over, I'd join the Air Force Reserve's IMA program. Initially there'd be Basic training and your tech school for your job. After that, once a year you'd go work 1.5-2 months (a year) in your IMA job somewhere. Where doesn't really matter... you could get an IMA position in England but live the rest of the year in Colorado. You get paid for that time. You get access to some benefits as well. The rest of the year I'd scrape by. Work then play, or find a part time job and do both if you can swing it. Over the holidays get a seasonal job at UPS and throw boxes then go ski the rest of the day. I also like freedom. If I didn't have kids, I would be very tempted to spend part of a year working 1-3 jobs, full on, no time for anything else, living dirt cheap, saving up, then exploring/playing the rest of the year. It's a slow path to FIRE, but on the other hand you could also cash flow a pretty awesome life if you're disciplined.

Some rules I'd try to live by:
1. No debt. If your car dies, stop playing, get a job, work until you've got a replacement (that's if you even have a car).
2. Emergency fund:  Have one. Not for a last-minute flight to a place with good waves or great powder. For a situation where you've gotten hurt or can't really sleep out of your car. It would be good to be able to have enough cash to pay for a short-term rental and recover.
3. Retirement contributions: Max out your IRA, and if you stay with the Reserves for 20 years you'll have earned some retirement benefits there as well.
6. If your lifestyle will force you to cut into your emergency fund or retirement, then stop and go to work.

**Other opportunities with the Reserves - If you wanted to make more money you could volunteer for a deployment, then come home and be a ski bum again with 6ish months of pay saved up (often tax-free pay, on deployments you get food and lodging, but they don't take your BAH (lodging allowance) or BAS (food allowance) away from you.) Full health insurance is included during that time as well. Great way to bank up a lot of cash with near-zero living expenses.

**My biggest draw to IMA is I could grow my beard 10 months out of the year!

[ROF Expat]

I choose the Mustachian option, but the key is to look for a job that is either an adventure in itself or one that contributes to having the lifestyle or adventures you want to have. 

If you want to see the world, join the diplomatic corps or Peace Corps or work for an NGO.  If you like an adrenaline rush in the woods, become a smokejumper.  If you like an adrenaline rush in the water, become a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.  Outdoors in general?  Fish and Wildlife Service.  Work doesn't have to be in a cubicle.  There are opportunities out there for young people who want to earn a living and still have adventures.  The only catch is that all of these jobs still require hard work and/or well developed skills. 

[BookLoverL]

I haven't voted in the poll, because there is no "best" for everyone, and it really depends on personal choice. I think in any case, though, if you truly want to maximise freedom for adventures, and you don't just want to set that value pretty high and include some other values too, you should try to have your spending at ERE levels unless what you do is extremely well paid.

Given that you want the adventures to be happening in your 20s and 30s, though, assuming a starting age of 21 at the oldest, I think that the most viable methods would be:

1) Get a very high paying job/career path which lets you ERE at 26 at the latest, while you are still well within the time of life where adventures sound appealing, and where you haven't stayed in the job so long that it wore away too much at your adventurous soul. This means you're in a fully financially comfortable position by the time you start adventuring, but it does mean you have to delay the start of the adventures a bit.

2) Get a part time job - seasonal work of some sort would be most suited here if you want to have actually long adventures - on which you can still save 50%ish of your income (which is possible because you have ERE spending levels), so that you've got time for adventures in your twenties, and you'll still reach FIRE by 40ish. This is a nice compromise between starting the adventures right away and making sure you're not being stressed out by money and distracted from your adventures because of it, but it does mean you'll probably have to work more overall, since it's harder to progress to higher pay-per-hour doing this.

3) Get an even more part time job or series of jobs, which covers your ERE level expenditure, but only just, and live paycheck to paycheck. This means you can start adventuring right away, and you have the most time initially for adventures, but since you're not saving any money it also means you'll still have to work when you're old.

Any of the employment options above can be either done as an employee or as self-employed, it's your choice.

Those are the main options I can think of that don't involve either winning the lottery or becoming the next Bill Gates or JK Rowling or something.

[Ynari]

For me and SO, it's a mix of PT/FT/contract work and sabbaticals, along with Mustachianism. (So... all of the above?) We currently both work FT and have only just gotten out of the hole, but are making plans for PT/contract work now that we have breathing room. Throw in a sabbatical every 2-3 years, along with MMM ideas, and we're looking at total FIRE within 15 years (around age 40). 15 years seems like a lot to me now, but we're trading speed for a more enjoyable pace through life. And who knows what'll change in that time? It's not like you just set a path and never change for a decade.

[PhilB]

I struggled on what to vote as all options have merit and need to be fitted to the individual, but in the end I went for FT plus sabbaticals as that is what I would advise them to do to start with.  First of all do a sufficient FT stint to acquire a trade and/or qualifications and skills that give you the ability to have a high savings rate when you are working.  Then take off repeatedly to see the world.  I'd also strongly advise buying a property you can let whilst away to help fund the travels and ensure that ultimately you have a paid off place to live.
As has been said above, kids or a partner with different aspirations are game changers.  At that point it probably makes more sense to switch to full on mustachianism -at least once the kids are school age.
I have a friend who didn't have kids and has continued this lifestyle through to her mid fifties.  She didn't have the qualifications early on and had to work longer to pay for her travel, but buckled down for a few years in her early thirties to get qualified which made high paid temp work easy to find.  She's still having a great life.
My own plan was similar, but starting with 3 years to get my qualification then 3 months temping 9 months travelling.  In the end the travel never happened as I met my wife who had different plans.  I didn't get the life I planned, but kids are a wonderful compensation and I am now fairly fat-FIRE at an age where my friend is still dependent on work so I have no complaints.

[pudding]

I think your choices of PT work while making enough to save for retirement and FT work with sabbaticals offer the best combination of leisure time and saving for the future. There are good threads on both on the board.

I personally am working PT as a contractor. I average about 6 hours of work per day, 5 days per week but I can vary my schedule around my other activities as needed. This is a good arrangement for me. I still save some money for retirement and have time to exercise, explore and generally enjoy my life.

I work the same way too. Contractor and set my own hours, it's not bad as can go away and come back and pick things back up the same week.

I'm in Canada too... Can I ask 'Life Happens' Do you snowbird in winter?

[LifeHappens]

I think your choices of PT work while making enough to save for retirement and FT work with sabbaticals offer the best combination of leisure time and saving for the future. There are good threads on both on the board.

I personally am working PT as a contractor. I average about 6 hours of work per day, 5 days per week but I can vary my schedule around my other activities as needed. This is a good arrangement for me. I still save some money for retirement and have time to exercise, explore and generally enjoy my life.

I work the same way too. Contractor and set my own hours, it's not bad as can go away and come back and pick things back up the same week.

I'm in Canada too... Can I ask 'Life Happens' Do you snowbird in winter?

I'm not Canadian. Live year round in Florida.

[pudding]

I feel like people make a lot of excuses in terms of adventure when they're fully employed. You can make it happen. Even in my 40's now with kids, mortgage, full time gig in the last year I did 3 weeks in europe with the family, a nice 4 day MTB, 4 day mountain/rafting family trip, 1 week in CO solo slaying powder and my wife did a solo vacation in Vegas. This year it's looking like the wifey will be hitting Japan, family in vegas while I MTB and climbing, I'm gonna do a tahoe/overlanding trip in summer and I have some big endurance event planned. I can do this for a few reasons. A big one is because I'm in my peak earning years and can do this while still saving for FIRE. The second is because I make it a priority exactly because I don't want to reach mid 50's FIRE and wish I'd done all this awesome stuff when I was younger. Also worth noting I'm out having fun not just on weekends. I work early and get out on the trails/mountain 3-4 times a week. Vacation is for bigger trips. :D

Outdoor adventure is a huge part of my life and I don't think you have to put it in neat boxes. Blur that shit!


Hey Big_Slacker, that's impressive!   I've identified in myself that I have this crappy way of thinking that 'I can't do this and that, or go here and there because of my landlording responsibilities'     whereas I could and should as time's ticking by! .... for me it's kind of this faulty thinking that I'll 'do it one day when I'm footloose and fancy free'   Any tips to share on how you and your partner get all that fun time into your schedule?

FWIW I did the snowboad bum thing all of my 20's. I don't feel like it hurt me. It helped. I did so much awesome stuff and worked out a lot of my dumbass kid tendencies. I was fully focused and had my shit together when I was READY to start a career and it took off fast. I'm still on track to be done with this work stuff before 'normal' retirement age.

[big_slacker]

Hey Big_Slacker, that's impressive!   I've identified in myself that I have this crappy way of thinking that 'I can't do this and that, or go here and there because of my landlording responsibilities'     whereas I could and should as time's ticking by! .... for me it's kind of this faulty thinking that I'll 'do it one day when I'm footloose and fancy free'   Any tips to share on how you and your partner get all that fun time into your schedule?

A lot of my good life tips come from mountain biking and snowboarding. Dreaming about hitting that big drop is nice. Visualizing how you'll do it practically is better. Ultimately though you have to commit to the line, take your hands off the brakes and hit it.

We have a list of 'big trips' written out and we pick one each year for family and one each for solo. We look at where it can work schedule wise. Then we just plan and book everything. Running your monthly expenses through a points optimize CC is a big help with cost (look at the points guy website, Chase Sapphire usually is good). But regardless, just commit and put it on the calendar. Once you've done that you're going to make everything else work, from work schedule, stand in for your other responsibilities and so on.

Outside of the big trips, I can just say I have held pretty true to my vision of living my life going outside to play nearly every day. I won't take a job that doesn't allow a flex schedule and plenty of WFH options. I'm usually up by 5:30am at the latest and stay laser focused knocking out my top 3 most impactful tasks for the day.

I always keep my gear fairly organized and ready to go, with options. As a for instance yesterday I worked from home starting at 5am and had time between 11am (work tasks and meetings done) and 2:15pm kid pickup. I threw on bike clothes. I grabbed my pre-packed duffel with helmet, shoes, pads and pack, threw it in the back of the truck. Aired up the bike tires and hit the local trail system 15 minutes away. Rode about an hour and a half getting some decent climbing and catching some air.

But if it was rainy I might have grabbed the rain gear and hiked. Or I always have climbing shoes and chalk in the back for the indoor climbing gym (guess that's not technically outdoors, but it's kind of adventure). Or if there is pow on the local mountain head up there and get some.

If I have the kids we often go offroading, run a trail and then find a camp spot to build a fire, make smores and play in a river. Or go for a hike. Or take them to the bike park so they can learn to shred.

These local daily adventures are so important. It's easy to look at an instagram nomad account and think your life is somehow less than theirs because you're not driving the length of the pan-am highway or whatever. But it isn't true, at least not if you live in a natural playground. In many ways it's more awesome, because you get to explore incredible natural beauty then grab some pho on the way home, sit in front of the fire and laugh at fart jokes with your kids. All without having to post a pic of your wife's ass on top of your van with a bunch of sponsor hashtags. :p

[nara]

Honestly, I found the best strategy for optimizing adventure and freedom was teaching english abroad! During the Great Recession, my husband and took a year off from our careers and went to teach english in Korea. Our airfare, fully furnished apartment, healthcare, and lunches were all free! Our cost of living was so low, and we also chose to live in a rural area which paid more than the cities and offered a more authentic experience. We saved money without even trying. It was such an amazing experience that I still think about daily. The work was so easy, we were treated like celebrities everywhere we went, we made lifelong friends with other expats living in our town, and we travelled to 10 countries. I'm honestly not sure why we ever left..

[mountain mustache]

What has worked for me is always living somewhere where I can adventure every day if I want, and taking small weekend trips to places close by. I live in the best place ever (in my opinion) and super close to some other amazing destinations for mountain biking, skiing, rafting, hiking, etc...I refuse to live in a city that does not have amazing mountain bike trails, skiing, hiking, etc close by. I've never lived somewhere where I couldn't ride straight out my door to trails, and I never plan to. I don't believe in sacrificing for 20 years until I have enough money to finally do what I want. I do what I want every day! I don't have as much money as other people might at my age, but I have enough for everything I need, and to save, and I get to adventure in a place people vacation to literally every day. I ski 3/4 days a week in the winter, and ride bikes literally every day, and then in the summer I take road trips to other places in CO to ride some different trails. I work a job that is decently flexible, so if it's a powder day on the mountain, I can ski till 1pm and then come into work. If I want to go ride the high country on a beautiful summer day, I can get up early and get to work at 12pm. No biggie. I have friends who worked their whole lives until 50 and then retired and now do all the things they always wanted to do...and they get tired faster, more injuries, etc. I just don't want to sacrifice my most fit years (20s, 30s, 40s) and sit at a desk all day. But, that's just what works for me! I'm super hard on my body, and don't expect to feel amazing at 60 years old, so I'm just not saving up any adventures for that age...hopefully I'll still be able to get out and have a good time, but no guarantees, so I'm just living every day as best I can!

[Linea_Norway]

What has worked for me is always living somewhere where I can adventure every day if I want, and taking small weekend trips to places close by. I live in the best place ever (in my opinion) and super close to some other amazing destinations for mountain biking, skiing, rafting, hiking, etc...I refuse to live in a city that does not have amazing mountain bike trails, skiing, hiking, etc close by. I've never lived somewhere where I couldn't ride straight out my door to trails, and I never plan to. I don't believe in sacrificing for 20 years until I have enough money to finally do what I want. I do what I want every day! I don't have as much money as other people might at my age, but I have enough for everything I need, and to save, and I get to adventure in a place people vacation to literally every day. I ski 3/4 days a week in the winter, and ride bikes literally every day, and then in the summer I take road trips to other places in CO to ride some different trails. I work a job that is decently flexible, so if it's a powder day on the mountain, I can ski till 1pm and then come into work. If I want to go ride the high country on a beautiful summer day, I can get up early and get to work at 12pm. No biggie. I have friends who worked their whole lives until 50 and then retired and now do all the things they always wanted to do...and they get tired faster, more injuries, etc. I just don't want to sacrifice my most fit years (20s, 30s, 40s) and sit at a desk all day. But, that's just what works for me! I'm super hard on my body, and don't expect to feel amazing at 60 years old, so I'm just not saving up any adventures for that age...hopefully I'll still be able to get out and have a good time, but no guarantees, so I'm just living every day as best I can!

For this reason we emigrated to our vacation destination country 20 years ago. Here we can easily do our favorite activities in the weekends. So I agree completely that you should make your working years as bearable as you can and make plenry of room for your outdoor activities.
My job is unfortunately not so flexible, although I can take a few hours early off if I want to go skiing or so. But as we always have this pressure to put in a certain minimum amount of working hours, I am often focussing on not loosing hours to often, unless I have a day where I need to leave early, of for certain days off. I typically take off all weekdays that are between a public holiday and a weekend, to maximize the number of long weekends for trips.

[big_slacker]

What has worked for me is always living somewhere where I can adventure every day if I want, and taking small weekend trips to places close by. I live in the best place ever (in my opinion) and super close to some other amazing destinations for mountain biking, skiing, rafting, hiking, etc...I refuse to live in a city that does not have amazing mountain bike trails, skiing, hiking, etc close by. I've never lived somewhere where I couldn't ride straight out my door to trails, and I never plan to. I don't believe in sacrificing for 20 years until I have enough money to finally do what I want. I do what I want every day! I don't have as much money as other people might at my age, but I have enough for everything I need, and to save, and I get to adventure in a place people vacation to literally every day. I ski 3/4 days a week in the winter, and ride bikes literally every day, and then in the summer I take road trips to other places in CO to ride some different trails. I work a job that is decently flexible, so if it's a powder day on the mountain, I can ski till 1pm and then come into work. If I want to go ride the high country on a beautiful summer day, I can get up early and get to work at 12pm. No biggie. I have friends who worked their whole lives until 50 and then retired and now do all the things they always wanted to do...and they get tired faster, more injuries, etc. I just don't want to sacrifice my most fit years (20s, 30s, 40s) and sit at a desk all day. But, that's just what works for me! I'm super hard on my body, and don't expect to feel amazing at 60 years old, so I'm just not saving up any adventures for that age...hopefully I'll still be able to get out and have a good time, but no guarantees, so I'm just living every day as best I can!

This is awesome and I agree with living somewhere that has adventure close by. I was just in CO and it's pretty nice out there!

FWIW though I'd work on injury prevention and extending your active lifetime as much as possible. My friend that I stay with in CO has an uncle who ski raced in the olympics and is STILL skiing over 60 years old. Yoga, letting injuries heal properly, decent diet, etc. I'm definitely not saying wait till old age to play, but I know through hard experience in my late 30's to put a focus on getting un-fucked and staying there leading to MORE fun, more often. :D

[mountain mustache]

What has worked for me is always living somewhere where I can adventure every day if I want, and taking small weekend trips to places close by. I live in the best place ever (in my opinion) and super close to some other amazing destinations for mountain biking, skiing, rafting, hiking, etc...I refuse to live in a city that does not have amazing mountain bike trails, skiing, hiking, etc close by. I've never lived somewhere where I couldn't ride straight out my door to trails, and I never plan to. I don't believe in sacrificing for 20 years until I have enough money to finally do what I want. I do what I want every day! I don't have as much money as other people might at my age, but I have enough for everything I need, and to save, and I get to adventure in a place people vacation to literally every day. I ski 3/4 days a week in the winter, and ride bikes literally every day, and then in the summer I take road trips to other places in CO to ride some different trails. I work a job that is decently flexible, so if it's a powder day on the mountain, I can ski till 1pm and then come into work. If I want to go ride the high country on a beautiful summer day, I can get up early and get to work at 12pm. No biggie. I have friends who worked their whole lives until 50 and then retired and now do all the things they always wanted to do...and they get tired faster, more injuries, etc. I just don't want to sacrifice my most fit years (20s, 30s, 40s) and sit at a desk all day. But, that's just what works for me! I'm super hard on my body, and don't expect to feel amazing at 60 years old, so I'm just not saving up any adventures for that age...hopefully I'll still be able to get out and have a good time, but no guarantees, so I'm just living every day as best I can!

This is awesome and I agree with living somewhere that has adventure close by. I was just in CO and it's pretty nice out there!

FWIW though I'd work on injury prevention and extending your active lifetime as much as possible. My friend that I stay with in CO has an uncle who ski raced in the olympics and is STILL skiing over 60 years old. Yoga, letting injuries heal properly, decent diet, etc. I'm definitely not saying wait till old age to play, but I know through hard experience in my late 30's to put a focus on getting un-fucked and staying there leading to MORE fun, more often. :D

Yes, totally agree on the injury prevention and extending active life as long as possible. I do yoga, PT, lots of strength exercises, and very healthy diet, but haven't always (well always healthy diet, but definitely did not do a lot of strength work in my early 20s). Because I wasn't super vigilant in my very early 20s and crushed my body with 20 hour training weeks, I ended up having to have 2 major surgeries last year. So, now I play catch up and try to do all of the right injury prevention things...but, I also accept that having back and hip surgery at 27 will probably mean I might not feel super at the age of 60. If I do end up feeling great, I will be stoked, but I have no expectations which leads me to try to live and enjoy every active day I have right now.

[Linea_Norway]

Today I listened to a podcast, interviewing a person who lives as a "profiled adventurer". She said that it was a lot of work, this profiling. Every time she is on a hiking trip, she needs to post pictures for her Instagram followers. She needs to take pretty pictures for her sponsors and product profiling. She needs to film her trips with good quality filming, to make TV series. It had a bit of a negative impact on the pleasure of being on a trip. On the other hand, she couldn't imagine living a "normal" life. She also had to be really creative in generating income and was often in financial insecurity. But she can do all she dreams about while she is young and in good health. She had established a webshop that she hoped would generate a more stable income, thinking a bit about the future and the possibility of becoming disabled or so.

[Hula Hoop]

I'm not outdoorsy but I love living in foreign countries and learning languages.  Right out of college, I went to a developing country, learned the language, got a job at a non-profit to pay my bills and generally had tons of adventures, some good some bad.  Then in my later 20s I started panicking about not really having a 'career' (I didn't want to stay in the non-profit world) so I returned home and did a graduate degree.  I entered the corporate work world right before my 30th birthday.


I definitely could have played my cards better if I'd been commited to FIRE but, frankly, I'd never heard of the concept and had no idea it was possible.  I spent more than I should have the first few years working in the corporate world in my home city.  Then I moved here to Italy and took a huge pay cut.  But we save a lot and are frugal.


Anyway, it takes a very clear eyed 22 year old to be able to carefully weigh the various options with the trade offs.  At 22 I never gave even one thought to retirement.  I was too busy figuring out who I was and going off to foreign lands. 


I think either approach is fine if you're like me and are more into cultural adventures rather than physical endurance ones.  Obviously, living in a developing country (dating local guys, travelling around and having crazy adventures) would probably be a bit diffferent as a married 50 something but I guess there would be pros as well as cons to travelling at a later age.