It’s been 1 year after leaving my job as an engineer and moving my family from the suburbs in Arizona to a small Colorado mountain town. What an adventure!
I spent countless hours thinking about the pros and cons before making this huge life change. Some have turned out just like I imagined. A few of them have been surprising.
Here are 10 things I’ve loved about it.
10 Great Things
1 Control over my time
Owning your time is the greatest luxury money can buy. The older you get the more precious time becomes to you. The more limited it seems.
Every hour that passes is an hour you’ll never get back. And I’m making the most of it!
I absolutely love being in control of my schedule. The only limitation I have is my daughter’s school or summer camp schedule. Drop-off, pick-up, holidays, and snow days. The rest is truly up to me.
No more early morning calls from the customer or late afternoon “emergencies” at work. No more schedule that others can control by sending a meeting notice that I’m “required” to attend. And no more 40-hour minimum workweeks or limited vacation time.
This allows me to be active in nature every day. I’ve taken random weekdays off from writing and coaching for amazing hikes and powder days. I’ve gone on spontaneous family camping trips and weekday dates with my wife. And I’ve been available whenever friends and family visit, which happens often when you live in a resort town!
2 Making memories and bonding with my daughter while she’s young
My daughter will never be 7-years-old again. This is a precious time to be with her and a critical time for her personal development. I’m convinced that having me around is giving her more confidence and emotional stability. There’s no way I could ever regret giving her more of my time at this age.
There’s also a better chance that she’ll feel connected to me when she’s an adult and want to visit more often because of the great memories that we’re developing together.
I’ve had so much extra park time, reading time, and game time with her. So many more smiles and laughs and hugs.
By the time your children turn 18, it’s estimated that 90% of your time spent with them will be in the past.
This article has some good data on how much time parents across the world spend with their kids each day on average. The gold standard is Denmark—consistently one of the happiest countries in the world—with 150 minutes for moms and 115 minutes for dads on average.
115 minutes? I’m spending almost half of that just reading and creating bedtime stories with my daughter these days!
I spent a lot of quality time with her before quitting my job. It isn’t all about quantity. But I get several more hours with her every weekday now. And that makes space for more unplanned teaching moments and experiences that just can’t happen when I’m away.
3 Low stress
Stress was constantly on my mind while I was working on a complex product and leading teams of engineers. Without a demanding corporate job, my stress is drastically lower. Job stress and time stress are both gone. And there’s no more burnout!
The stresses of everyday life will always be there, of course. Running late to drop my daughter for school. Leaky roof. Cleaning up the house before guests arrive.
These things are less constant and easier to move past than an overflowing inbox, meetings, and problems that need to be solved yesterday. And they were always there, adding on top of work stress anyway.
I’m also able to control my stress better by being in nature every day, exercising more, and keeping up with house chores.
Don’t get me wrong. Some stress is good and healthy. A stress-free life is also a life without growth and accomplishment.
That’s partly why I’m writing and coaching at Pathway to FI. It provides some stress to meet a writing schedule and create a quality product that benefits my readers and clients. And I’m learning and growing along the way. But the stress of writing for 20 hours a week is much more manageable than working a strict 40-50+ hours with little flexibility and high pressure to perform.
4 Better health
We all know that good sleep, exercise, and nutrition are key to good health. But it’s easy to let life get in the way and health decline as you age, become a parent, and take more job responsibilities.
I considered myself very healthy before leaving my job. But this life change still helped my health significantly!
There’s a cycle between lower stress, better sleep, and exercise. Less stress leads to better sleep and desire to exercise. Exercise lowers stress and improves sleep. And better sleep makes it easier to exercise and manage stress.
That cycle is going full steam for me now.
I track my sleep and activity daily on my Fitbit. I’m getting to sleep more easily. Getting much more REM and deep sleep than I did in past years. And my average step count is higher by at least 5,000 steps/day in the past year.
My passion project—Pathway to FI—still involves looking at screens for several hours a day. But that’s down from 8-10 hours/day a year ago! And I have no excuse if I don’t get a long walk, run, paddle, or bike ride in.
I’m eating better, too. Mostly because I’m not in an office with meetings and conferences that cater food and snacks all day. Then there’s the random box of doughnuts or pizza leftover in the office kitchen that I just can’t resist.
Fewer opportunities for impulsive eating and less stress-related, mindless snacking allow me to control my daily nutrition much better than I could on those 12-hour workdays.
5 Living wherever I want
My career required living near a city. The post-COVID world is making remote work more possible. But I had to be where the product was built if I wanted to stay in my role or move higher in the organization. Since I had Pathway to FI to create, I decided to leave my job instead of taking a lower, part-time role.
My wife went fully remote and kept a part-time job that she enjoys and wasn’t ready to quit. So we are no longer tied to a location because of a job!
I enjoyed living in Tucson for 15 years, and there’s a lot I miss about it. But I love being surrounded by nature in a small town even more! My wife and I love having new experiences, and we knew it was time to make a big change if we wanted more of them.
We were repeating many of the same hikes and day trips in Tucson. There’s so much for us to explore now that we live in a different state. And our daughter has more freedom to play outdoors than she had in the rocks and streets around our suburban home.
6 Life is simpler
One of the big reasons we moved to a small town was to slow down and simplify our life:
- No more vacation home with short-term rental guests & management issues. We went from 2 homes down to 1, and get to live in a vacation spot!
- More flexibility to run errands and take care of house chores in the middle of the day.
- More family game nights and leisurely dinners on the patio.
- Fewer logistics to handle. Our work and family schedules are far more open.
- No commute. Just the regular traffic of school drop-off and pick-up.
A simple life is a good life.
7 Adventure
I’ve always wanted to do something unconventional in my life. Travel around the world. Learn a foreign language. Backpack the Pacific Crest Trail. YOLO, right?!
From our new home, and with newfound time, I’ve already had plenty of adventures:
- Chasing a moose for 2 miles in a car through a narrow canyon.
- Hiking several long stretches of the Continental Divide Trail.
- Snowmobiling to the top of a remote mountain, then snowboarding down.
- Cross-country skiing up a forest road with a curious red fox following along.
- Kayaking within feet of two bald eagles.
Not to mention the more family-oriented adventures:
- Camping and paddling along a pristine lake.
- Biking a path next to a rushing river.
- Exploring a historic mining town.
- Watching my 7-year-old slalom ski race.
- Building a snow tunnel to sled through.
These experiences really make life exciting!
8 Trying new hobbies
Since moving to Colorado, I picked up a hobby that I always wanted to try as a kid—archery.
I’ve also added stand-up paddleboarding and cross-country skate skiing to my list. And I’m finally taking the time to get into mountain biking, which was popular back in Arizona but something I just couldn’t fit in.
It’s fun trying new things! And getting the proper gear to maximize the experience. Snowboarding even feels new to me after learning how to ride the hardest parts of the mountain in 10 feet of powder.
9 Time for friends & friends with time
When I was working 50-hour weeks, it was all I could do to spend quality time with my family and take care of myself. Spending time with friends was a rare luxury.
In the last year, I’ve been on more “guy trips” and adventures with friends than the previous 15 years combined! White-water rafting, snowboarding, mountain biking, and hiking are so accessible. And people move here specifically for those activities. So doing things with friends has been easier than ever!
I’m finding that my friends here have more time than the friends I made in the city. In the city, most of them had big careers like me. And they were running the rat race.
In the mountains, I’m meeting more teachers, pastors, construction workers, ski bums, and entrepreneurs who have more flexible schedules and are prioritizing life over career. It’s refreshing!
10 Working on a passion project
I love working on PathwayToFI. After spending almost 2 decades studying personal finance and reaching Financial Independence (FI) myself, I want to share my experiences and knowledge. My dream is to teach thousands of people how to become financially independent and live the life of their dreams.
Writing has been a fun process for me. Coaching people one-on-one and seeing them understand a concept and take control of their finances—sometimes for the first time in their life—is deeply fulfilling.
Summary
Leaving my job and moving to the mountains has been a big and exciting life change. If you’re dreaming about doing something similar, I’d encourage you to think deeply about the pros and cons.
Will you be more or less satisfied with life? Have more or less regret?
In this article, I went through 10 things I’ve loved about the decision:
- Control over my time
- Making memories & bonding with my daughter
- Low stress
- Better health
- Living wherever I want
- A simpler life
- Adventure
- Trying new hobbies
- Time for friends & friends with time
- Working on a passion project
It wouldn’t be honest to say that life is perfect now. There’s always a trade-off with any big life change. Read about the 6 challenges I experienced in my first 6 months next. I don’t have much to add after another 6 months have passed. So I think I’ll just leave it at that!
And don’t forget to sign up for FREE at the bottom of the page to get much more value from PathwayToFI.
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