A Life Update and some BIG NEWS!
Soo…we have exciting news! We got engaged!!!!
After just less than 6 years of being together, Mr Way asked me to marry him and I said yes!
So I’ll be asking for lots of frugal wedding advice from like minded FI enthusiasts!!
Like everything else in our lives we will be looking at our wedding as a project. If Mr Way has his way, it will no doubt be organised through countless spreadsheets!
However, this event has caused us to battle the ever returning question of: what are we doing with our lives?
Miss Way’s Take
As we approach the end of the academic year, I will be working my last days in traditional PAYE employment. As of September I will be fully self-employed.
Being completely freelance could be quite a daunting prospect, especially with a wedding to plan! I will be doing my best to hold my nerve. I have previously been completely self-employed and have managed pretty well on it.
Over the past couple of years I have really upped my savings rate. Now, for the first time in my life, I feel able to take a few more risks with my work. This means I can now say YES to work that I WANT rather than feeling that I’m just taking work just because I HAVE to! Which in turn gives me more freedom to say NO to work that will not fulfill me. This is an amazing luxury to have and hopefully I will really start to appreciate it come December time.
Mr Way and I are constantly re-evaluating our lives in the search for the perfect level of happiness. Sometimes this feels close to hand and others times, miles away. This change in my work ethic will hopefully promote a more relaxed and easy going lifestyle compared to the incredibly hectic one we are currently living!
Mr Way’s Take
It feels like we’re at a bit of a cross-roads in our lives at the minute. We’re both quite burnt out with the current routine so something certainly has to change.
At present, Miss Way is working all hours of the day sometimes sacrificing her own well-being in the process. When you combine busy work schedules with regular fitness regimes, food prep and all of life’s other admin tasks, we’re pretty snowed under! We know this isn’t sustainable. We have recently started listening to Dr Rangan Chaterjee’s podcast (thanks Sam @ Simple Living for the suggestion) we are certain we need to work on our ‘relaxation pillar’!
Obviously our recent engagement brings some changes. We now have a wedding to plan! We have no idea what we want really – aside from the fact I don’t want it to be in a church, and we both want it to be quite a frugal occasion while still maintaining the aspects that are important to us.
Aside from this, we’re in a bit of a battle with what to do with our lives. We constantly flit between wanting to go and work abroad for a while, have a child, settle into what we already have, spend more time traveling (we’re almost ready for our month in Africa and can’t wait!) or any combination of the above. Throw into the mix the fact that I am considering going down to a 4 day work week (more time to focus on what genuinely makes me happy in life) and you really have a confused situation!
We’re sure all of the pieces will fall into place eventually! At the moment everything feels a little unsettled and confusing. I guess a lot of this stems from the fact I’m not very good with decisions and/or choice. Life is very comfortable at the minute so I would find it very difficult to significantly uproot what we have!
Help!!
So… we would love to hear your advice! Have you been through similar cross-roads in life? How did you evaluate which option to choose? Is there a right or a wrong way round to do things? Should we just wait and see what turns up or actively go out and find something new?
Congrats on your engagement!
Thanks Weenie 🙂
Congratulations and thanks so much for the mention. Glad you are enjoying his podcast. Another post this time on sleep, coming up on Tuesday.
Thanks Sam. Dr Chatterjee’s podcast has been a real game-changer for us!
Good blog! Now you have something to think about 🙂 You can make the wedding unique but still frugal definitely.
Thanks Nordic Fire. That’s certainly the plan! We have a few ideas in mind but will be trying to think outside the box to stay frugal while still achieving our dream day!
Congratulations, such an exciting time!
Here’s what we did to keep to costs down…
https://thefireshrink.wordpress.com/2019/05/22/our-wedding-price-tag/
Hey TheFIREShrink – and thanks!
We’ve read this article several times and the tip about checking the licensed venue list was a really great help to us. Sure we will make use of some of your other advice in the coming months too!
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Congrats on the engagement. That’s fantastic to hear.
Long time reader and just wanted to pop in and provide some feedback. I think you’re about to enter a hugely exciting part of your life. Marriage and the decisions which follow this. Having read the blog for some time i believe you are both forward thinking and have a grasp of what you want from life. You remind me of my own personal situation.
I actually left my job back in 2016 a month before our daughter was born to push my educational business. It was providing at the time around 30/40% of our monthly earnings which id built up on an evening/early mornings with a friend. To supplement this i freelanced (which I still do now). Fast forward 3 years and i’m in a position you described above. The business funds our month to month living and I freelance still 5-6 days a month because i ‘can’. It’s just additional money and it enables me to stay commercially aware.
Like you described above I am able to pick and choose those clients i want to work with because i have a financial fall back in both savings and the business. It’s enabled my wife to leave her job over a year ago and now act as an adhoc supply teacher, raise our daughter and push forward with other things she’s always wanted to do (Become a befriender for AgeUK).
I’m trying to summarise a little here but my basic point is that if you have skills, drive and ambition to lead the type of balanced life you want to lead then I am sure you will achieve this. You mentioned having success with freelancing before and it seems you’re both in a much better place now financially, health and lifestyle wise.
Will be really interesting to follow your journey and if you’re interested in what I do a little more then head over to the blog (in Bio) or let’s discuss.
Have confidence in your ability and if the path you want to go down doesn’t quite work out then you’re skilled enough to go back to employment/full time hours.
Hope this helps a little,
Keep writing great content.
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Apologies for not replying sooner, August was a crazy month for us!
Thanks so much for your comments, it’s great to know people are reading and enjoying our posts. Thanks for your advice too, it’s nice to be reminded to have faith in our own abilities.
We have started planning our wedding – bring on the spreadsheets! Once the date for that is in place, hopefully we can start slotting other life events around it! Exciting times!
Having looked at your blog and your kids connect website I’d be really interested to help you out if you ever decide to branch out into producing worksheets for music lessons.
Thanks again,
Miss Way