First, you’d need to make enough money to work 1-2 years to be able to save up enough that it’s more substantial than a two week vacation, which for many isn’t possible.
Second, you’d need to have a type of career where it’s just fine to stop working for awhile and then come back like nothing happened. Most careers don’t let you just leave for awhile and come back when you feel like it, and applying for a new job every year or two years sounds fucking miserable.
Third, you’d need to have some place you can live during those 1-2 years you are working. Either you’re rich enough to just already own a home or condo or keep paying rent, or you have kind friends or family that let you live with them. Otherwise, again, you’re searching for housing every year or two, which sounds awful.
Fourth, you still need medical care when you aren’t working, so you need the money to pay for private insurance.
As you said. Pets, kids, an SO with a stable job that doesn’t want to do this, all non-starters.
To me this screams “I have a trust fund and I mean that I want to save up travel money while my apartment is already paid for.” And where that’s not the case, I imagine it’s someone in a very lucrative field, where working two years nets them a significant amount of money.
Though the top comment certainly shows an example of where this does work (though it requires all the assumptions I outlined above)
My friends and I basically do this. None of us have trust funds.
My friends:
Park ranger, climbing guide, liftee, etc. Do enjoyable seasonal work, take off seasons you wanna have fun.
Remote worker. Live in a van, work normal hours, but travel where ever you feel like.
Rope access technician. Make 6 figures in 6 months, winters off.
Engineer/Software Dev/Normal Office Worker. Do good work at a no-name mid-sized company for a few years to build up good working relationships and tribal knowledge. Leave on good terms with a handshake agreement that you can return in a few years as long as they still have room for you. Call it a “sabbatical”.
Contractor/Carpenter/Trades. Make 6 figures in 6 months, or just take off whenever you want. Someone always needs a staircase built.
Accountant. Work 3 months for tax season, then fuck off.
Travel Nursing. Pick up 3 months stints basically whenever you want.
Teacher. Summers off.
Nannying. Build up a string of good references, then take off when you feel like it - you can always find another gig.
Any job where you can make around 6 figures after a few years in the trenches. Live cheap, save up, invest in passive income streams, retire forever.
Some of them have pets. Some of them have kids. Some of them have partners (who they chose in part for their openness to this lifestyle). Some of my friends were born into stable middle class families. Some were born into poverty with drug addicts. Some were drug addicts who spent years in and out of jail. Literally the only thing they all have in common is that they cared enough about having flexibility in their lives to make it happen.
Edit: for additional context -
Where do they live? They tend to live in their cars or in tents in nature, or else in hostel-like environments when abroad. No rent helps a lot. They will rent out their homes when they are gone if they own. Or sublease their rental if they want it when they come back. Or simply have no home base other than maybe a storage unit. Not owning much, and having little attachment to material possessions helps a lot here, too.
For healthcare - best option is to be from somewhere with a good healthcare system. Lots of my friends are Canadian. I’m from Colorado, and the state subsidizes your health insurance premiums based on your income. You can also use travel insurance, and set your home address to be somewhere where you don’t intend to go near, like a parent or friends home. Or you can simply spend all your time in countries where healthcare is cheap or free. Finally, one friend was simply uninsured and said his plan was to throw his wallet out the window on his way to the ER and give them a fake name and address.
I was curious. I knew software dev would be in there and it’s my wheel house.
Engineer/Software Dev/Normal Office Worker. Do good work at a no-name mid-sized company for a few years to build up good working relationships and tribal knowledge. Leave on good terms with a handshake agreement that you can return in a few years as long as they still have room for you. Call it a “sabbatical”.
So he worked for a few years first. Not the 1-2 years this has talking about. His value is relationships and tribal knowledge, neither help him get a job at another company if the no name company goes under. Left that company with nothing but a promise that you might be able to come back… And if he can’t, welp that’s going to be rough.
This seems line a VERY unstable future.
Also if these people are making 6 figures in 6 months I don’t see the govment helping them with Healthcare. And living in a van it doesn’t seem easy to have a network. Raising a kid like that also seems kinda messed up, they don’t get to develop those social skills…
If you want a stable future, I guess you would not pick that lifestyle. And if you worked for 5-6 years, taking a year off for personal reasons is not too unheard of. That is long enough to be trained, work productively and hand over your tasks to the next guy. Also, you could always make something up like “I had to help family members” or “I built a house/family member’s house” or whatever.
That’s pretty cool. How do those with kids or a “home base” manage to just leave for an extended period of time? Do they seek new housing or just have someone take care of their property while they are gone?
Also when you say “invest in passive income streams” please elaborate, as this often leads to buy property and be a landlord, grift others, etc.
One friend who has kids is a teacher. His ex was a school administrator. Now that they are divorced, he’ll take the kids for one month in the summer, and she’ll take them for the other.
Another is currently working on outfitting his camper van to be family-ready, plus building out a trailer to function as a home office. He works as a therapist while his wife works remotely for a nonprofit.
Another friend just had a daughter out of wedlock irresponsibly young, and now just does odd jobs under the table in his 40s when he wants money.
Friends with home bases do a number of things. Some rent them out - this is easier if you hire a management company or have someone nearby to help out if things go wrong. Some actually do make enough money to just leave them sitting there for a while. One friend has a “home base” that is literally his friends well water pump shed. A few friends have raw land that they park their vans on, which they are constructing more permanent homes on at their own schedule.
Passive income streams for everyone I know of are landlording or index funds. This is what I personally do. I have two properties - one is a big house in the city where I rent by the room. The other is a mountain cabin vacation rental. I do pretty much all the maintenance and management of these places myself. Just today I was pulling weeds in the gravel driveway, and the next time I have a gap in guests I’ll be restocking the soap and coffee and TP at the cabin. This summer I’ll be getting dirty and sweaty doing fire mitigation and landscaping. You can say it’s a grift, but all I see is that I’m offering affordable rent to people who recently moved to my city, often giving them a community in the process; and then helping families enjoy the beautiful mountains when they have a week or a weekend of vacation off. Of course, I am profiting simply from the fact that I bought the land at a particular time - for more on that, I’d recommend reading about Georgism, the most fair and efficient taxation scheme you’ve never heard of. But at the end of the day, the system is what it is, and I’m unlikely to change it. So why leave the opportunities around me just sitting there (where someone else will scoop them up anyway) out of some kind of impotent moral outrage?
What about retirement? Not continuing to save for retirement during your 20s and 30s is a recipe for absolute disaster for long-term stability. What about saving for a down payment for a house?
“Boomers” don’t like this because it seems incredibly short-sighted.
I mean, there are plenty of boomers who also didn’t save for retirement. It’s not like this is a kids-these-days thing.
Some of my friends, I assume, are not saving for retirement. I don’t know what they plan on doing. Others I assume are sensible enough to contribute maximally to their retirement plans while they are working, so they’ll have some healthy funds to live on later. I, personally, always maxed out my 401k and IRA before I put any money in my other funds. And I bought 2 houses which I run as investment properties. Frugality can get you a long way.
He had first year of state tests this year and his oldest tested an entire grade above where she should be. They are enrolled in so many activities (sports, music, cooking classes, etc.) That they get plenty of social interaction and develop their social skills.
This only works without kids.
I mean there’s a whole bunch of assumptions
First, you’d need to make enough money to work 1-2 years to be able to save up enough that it’s more substantial than a two week vacation, which for many isn’t possible.
Second, you’d need to have a type of career where it’s just fine to stop working for awhile and then come back like nothing happened. Most careers don’t let you just leave for awhile and come back when you feel like it, and applying for a new job every year or two years sounds fucking miserable.
Third, you’d need to have some place you can live during those 1-2 years you are working. Either you’re rich enough to just already own a home or condo or keep paying rent, or you have kind friends or family that let you live with them. Otherwise, again, you’re searching for housing every year or two, which sounds awful.
Fourth, you still need medical care when you aren’t working, so you need the money to pay for private insurance.
As you said. Pets, kids, an SO with a stable job that doesn’t want to do this, all non-starters.
To me this screams “I have a trust fund and I mean that I want to save up travel money while my apartment is already paid for.” And where that’s not the case, I imagine it’s someone in a very lucrative field, where working two years nets them a significant amount of money.
Though the top comment certainly shows an example of where this does work (though it requires all the assumptions I outlined above)
My friends and I basically do this. None of us have trust funds.
My friends:
Some of them have pets. Some of them have kids. Some of them have partners (who they chose in part for their openness to this lifestyle). Some of my friends were born into stable middle class families. Some were born into poverty with drug addicts. Some were drug addicts who spent years in and out of jail. Literally the only thing they all have in common is that they cared enough about having flexibility in their lives to make it happen.
Edit: for additional context -
Where do they live? They tend to live in their cars or in tents in nature, or else in hostel-like environments when abroad. No rent helps a lot. They will rent out their homes when they are gone if they own. Or sublease their rental if they want it when they come back. Or simply have no home base other than maybe a storage unit. Not owning much, and having little attachment to material possessions helps a lot here, too.
For healthcare - best option is to be from somewhere with a good healthcare system. Lots of my friends are Canadian. I’m from Colorado, and the state subsidizes your health insurance premiums based on your income. You can also use travel insurance, and set your home address to be somewhere where you don’t intend to go near, like a parent or friends home. Or you can simply spend all your time in countries where healthcare is cheap or free. Finally, one friend was simply uninsured and said his plan was to throw his wallet out the window on his way to the ER and give them a fake name and address.
I was curious. I knew software dev would be in there and it’s my wheel house.
So he worked for a few years first. Not the 1-2 years this has talking about. His value is relationships and tribal knowledge, neither help him get a job at another company if the no name company goes under. Left that company with nothing but a promise that you might be able to come back… And if he can’t, welp that’s going to be rough.
This seems line a VERY unstable future.
Also if these people are making 6 figures in 6 months I don’t see the govment helping them with Healthcare. And living in a van it doesn’t seem easy to have a network. Raising a kid like that also seems kinda messed up, they don’t get to develop those social skills…
If you want a stable future, I guess you would not pick that lifestyle. And if you worked for 5-6 years, taking a year off for personal reasons is not too unheard of. That is long enough to be trained, work productively and hand over your tasks to the next guy. Also, you could always make something up like “I had to help family members” or “I built a house/family member’s house” or whatever.
That’s pretty cool. How do those with kids or a “home base” manage to just leave for an extended period of time? Do they seek new housing or just have someone take care of their property while they are gone?
Also when you say “invest in passive income streams” please elaborate, as this often leads to buy property and be a landlord, grift others, etc.
One friend who has kids is a teacher. His ex was a school administrator. Now that they are divorced, he’ll take the kids for one month in the summer, and she’ll take them for the other.
Another is currently working on outfitting his camper van to be family-ready, plus building out a trailer to function as a home office. He works as a therapist while his wife works remotely for a nonprofit.
Another friend just had a daughter out of wedlock irresponsibly young, and now just does odd jobs under the table in his 40s when he wants money.
Friends with home bases do a number of things. Some rent them out - this is easier if you hire a management company or have someone nearby to help out if things go wrong. Some actually do make enough money to just leave them sitting there for a while. One friend has a “home base” that is literally his friends well water pump shed. A few friends have raw land that they park their vans on, which they are constructing more permanent homes on at their own schedule.
Passive income streams for everyone I know of are landlording or index funds. This is what I personally do. I have two properties - one is a big house in the city where I rent by the room. The other is a mountain cabin vacation rental. I do pretty much all the maintenance and management of these places myself. Just today I was pulling weeds in the gravel driveway, and the next time I have a gap in guests I’ll be restocking the soap and coffee and TP at the cabin. This summer I’ll be getting dirty and sweaty doing fire mitigation and landscaping. You can say it’s a grift, but all I see is that I’m offering affordable rent to people who recently moved to my city, often giving them a community in the process; and then helping families enjoy the beautiful mountains when they have a week or a weekend of vacation off. Of course, I am profiting simply from the fact that I bought the land at a particular time - for more on that, I’d recommend reading about Georgism, the most fair and efficient taxation scheme you’ve never heard of. But at the end of the day, the system is what it is, and I’m unlikely to change it. So why leave the opportunities around me just sitting there (where someone else will scoop them up anyway) out of some kind of impotent moral outrage?
What about retirement? Not continuing to save for retirement during your 20s and 30s is a recipe for absolute disaster for long-term stability. What about saving for a down payment for a house?
“Boomers” don’t like this because it seems incredibly short-sighted.
My retirement plan is sponsored by Smith and Wesson.
I mean, there are plenty of boomers who also didn’t save for retirement. It’s not like this is a kids-these-days thing.
Some of my friends, I assume, are not saving for retirement. I don’t know what they plan on doing. Others I assume are sensible enough to contribute maximally to their retirement plans while they are working, so they’ll have some healthy funds to live on later. I, personally, always maxed out my 401k and IRA before I put any money in my other funds. And I bought 2 houses which I run as investment properties. Frugality can get you a long way.
My buddy does this with 3 kids. Hes been a contractor all his life for start up. Regularly gets equity in the start up. Builds it up, then cashes out.
Works for him as a contractor because he can make his own hours and they home school their kids, so they travel all the time too
Those kids are going to be miles behind everyone else when they enter the workforce.
He had first year of state tests this year and his oldest tested an entire grade above where she should be. They are enrolled in so many activities (sports, music, cooking classes, etc.) That they get plenty of social interaction and develop their social skills.
I appreciate your uninformed opinion tho