a little taste of freedom

Sep30
by TFS on September 30, 2015 at 8:06 am
Posted In: Random Thoughts, TFS Updates
Freeeeeeeedom!!!!!

Ye can tek ma tomatoes, but ye can never tek ma…. Well you know rest… 😉

I have officially made it! A finally have a little taste of my own freedom.

Spoiler alert: It’s fucking brilliant 🙂

Disclaimer: This post may come across as sickeningly smug, especially if you are at work while reading it. I truly apologise if so in advance but I am genuinely very excited to be off work and wanted to just do a bit of a brain dump on my thoughts!

Yes, after talking about it all that time ago, today is my first day off in my first 2 week period off work.

I am now working part time, or am semi-retired, or am just a layabout bum for 1/3 or my usual working life, however you would rather phrase it. I think semi-retired is way over the top so I will call it part time I think.

I guess I haven’t really got much to write on the experience so far as I am only ~1.5 hours into the whole thing but I am too excited not to write a post about it, so… here it is!

So far 🙂 it has been really good. The sun is shining which always helps my mood but the feeling of getting up on a weekday and being able to run my own schedule is an absolutely immense feeling. And I can do this for the next 14 days!!!! I can’t actually tell you how excited I am feeling.

If this is what a little bit of freedom is like, being fully FI must be one of the greatest feelings in the world! I’ve read it many times but those are just words on a laptop screen, now I fully believe that what they say is true.

I realise I am probably jumping the gun a bit here but I wanted to get down in words what this exact moment is like. It’s like I have been partially allowed access to another world, I know I’ll have to go back again in two weeks but I also know I will be back again soon. I want to be able to come back to this post later on to relive the feeling, and so anyone else out there considering something similar can read what it’s like. Obviously I will come back and write more on the experience at the end of the 2 weeks, it could be a completely different story by then (hopefully not!) but whatever happens I will be completely honest with you as always.

I wrote about a few of my fears here, one of which was becoming bored and missing full time employment, but I’ve got a great hedge against becoming bored by simply having to go back to work after each two week break. After another four weeks of work, I am thinking (hoping) that I will get this feeling anew every time I start each 2 weeks off!

My other fear was with not feeling motivated to get up and do anything productive but today I am feeling more motivated than any time I can remember in the last few years. I have a massive TODO list and I want to crank through it as fast as I can in this two weeks and then enjoy a bit of chilling out time towards the end. To prove how motivated I am feeling about all this: I am actually planning on working on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Not all day everyday but I will be doing at least 4 hours work on each day. I also envisage putting in some solid 12 hour programming days between Monday to Thursday next week

Some other random benefits already noted are:

  • Nan has just dislocated her shoulder so now rather than running around worrying about trying to help her out in the evenings, I can pop over to help her any time she needs me.
  • I have time to do some blog stuff and write a blog post uninterrupted!!!! You have no idea how easy it was to clear all my comments down, reply to them all and then write this post compared to my normal shambolic procedure of cramming it into my daily commute. It has taken me about 1.5 hours from start to finish. Compared to trying to do this stuff on the train I am well over twice as productive. A quiet environment to think, no interruptions with changing trains, losing internet signal, not getting a seat and so on, it’s really a different kettle of fish. No comparison. I only worry now when I try to do blog stuff on the train in future I will get so frustrated I will end up just not bothering (Hey I can just read a book instead, so maybe not such a bad thing!).
  • Oh and finally, it has not gone unnoticed that the weather is pretty darn nice for this time of year so if I end up playing a round of golf it would not be the greatest surprise either… 😉

 

As I say I will report back in 2 weeks but for now I am loving it so far… 😀

/*Smug mode off*/

 

Have you ever had a little taste of freedom before, and did it make you yearn for Financial Independence even more? If so how did you get that taste and what can you do to taste it more often? Would love to hear your stories below!

 

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