Choose Your Own Adventure With Mini-Retirement

I heard about the mini-retirement idea from Tim Ferriss.  It’s smart.  The core premise is that you don’t need to be rich to live a rich life and you don’t need to be old to retire.  Instead of focusing on money, bank accounts, and IRAs, focus on:

• What you want to do.
• How long you want to do it.
• How much it will likely cost / how much you want to spend.
• Doing it.

The genius of the idea is that figuring out what you want to do is both the most fun and most difficult part.  Things fall into place after you decide the what.

Length and cost are interrelated.  Length is really just a question of patience and budget — factors that can be inversely related in some cases.  Hitchhiking is a lot cheaper than air-travel, but you need serious patience … and time.  The amount you spend doesn’t have to be what the trip costs if you can figure out a way to maintain some level of income while away.  Mini-retirement is a wonderful problem to ponder.

Doing it involves creating a plan to get past the pondering stage.  And maybe this is really the toughest part.  There are always reasons to maintain the status quo, always reasons to stay put.  Only hobbits and heros have good reasons for adventures.

photo credit: Michal Fabry