I believe that money is a tool that should be used to help build the life of your dreams. After you’ve repaid your debt, saved for emergencies, and funded your retirement, anything you have left over is yours to do with as you please.

This is great for JD, who is finally finding the time to pursue whatever it is that he finds interesting, in this case traveling the world and seeing what there is to see outside his home state. But for many of us, following those dreams can seem like a push-pull towards one goal or another. Do you want to travel the world or save for a house/pay your mortgage early? How much is enough of an emergency fund? What if your dream means giving up the extra income of your 9 to 5 job? In short, where do you find the balance to save for the things you have to, like retirement, a home (if you want one), and pay for insurance while still starting your own business or traveling the world?

Unfortunately there’s simply no right answer, and you won’t get the same answer from the same person you ask no matter where you go. The reason for this is that each of us act differently under the same circumstances. Some people like having that fire lit under them, having to drive toward a goal because they simply have no other choice. Dropping everything and throwing everything they have at a new business idea or designing their own lifestyle despite not having that nest egg or emergency fund actually works for some people, like it did for Naomi over at Ittybiz. The stakes are high and that provides even more incentive to succeed.

Others, (I consider myself in this camp, I should note) would not do well under these same circumstances. Not having a nest egg or an emergency fund to support them if their endeavors failed would only exist a source of worry and stress that would distract them from their goals. For them (and me) it only makes sense to really pull the trigger when it is financially viable to do so. This is similar to a situation I’m in now, where I gave up a chance at a decent-paying 9 to 5 job for a part time contract gig and my fledgling hydra to support me, but it wasn’t something I took into consideration lightly. I do have an emergency fund and severance from my previous employment to that could keep me going for at least a year even without any outside income. The question you have to ask yourself is when are you really going to be ready to make the leap and accomplish your goals? If you need that emergency fund and the mortgage paid off before you’re comfortable, do it.  If you have the drive and fire to go all out on a goal you know will work, fire away. Neither one is the right path, per se, but it’s important to know the right balance for you.

So I’ve gotten back from vacation in Emerald Isle, NC, which was a total blast! The down time also allowed me to clear my head and get a more definitive idea of what my next course of action would be. I had been in the running for another full-time position, but didn’t look forward to returning to the daily grind. Instead, I decided, I would find part time work of a similar pay scale and make up the difference with my freelance work and site portfolio.

My s/o has been surprisingly supportive of this turn of events, though technically it would be likely a little less in terms of income than it would be if I accepted another full time job. The feeling of freedom, of choosing where I’ll work and the terms of my employment, has been a great feeling. Having come across a recent post by Phillip Brewer over at Wisebread, I was happy to see there’s others that feel this as well:

“You can choose how you want to live.  If you choose to live simply, you gain a certain kind of freedom.  In particular, you’re free to choose to do the work that’s the most satisfying, rather than the most lucrative.  Choosing to live simply doesn’t mean that you have to give up all the cool stuff you want.  It means, rather, that you have to focus on a small number of wants–the ones that matter the most to you.”

Its been an uncertain road so far. Sometimes I feel like I should just head back to full-time work in Finance and take the path of safety, security, and comfort. There’s also the obvious societal/family pressure and expectations that weigh on you as you go as well. I’ve stood by my decision to put these aside, to at the very least try and work for myself while deriving a stable income from part-time work in an industry I like. I’m excited and scared, but I feel better than I would if I didn’t even try.

I tire of the oft-heard advice that you need to find a career you love in order to really enjoy living. Almost Fearless recently wrote about her upcoming move to Spain. She sold most of her stuff, quit her 9-5 job, and is just about ready to make the transition to a new country, job, and language. Admittedly I’m impressed. Many people only day dream of making such a leap, content to sit at their desk on a Wed. afternoon wondering “Wouldn’t it be nice to….?” She received one such comment in response:

“Traveling is good if you enjoy traveling, you might also want to consider finding a career that you enjoy doing. Then there will not be a need for such escapism. I enjoy traveling, but also enjoy my work.”

I’m not so sure this rings true. I work in Financial Services and I genuinely like what I do. The fact that I have a job isn’t really the issue, it’s that much of what I do in my day to day life revolves around work. The fact that you work for 5 days straight, only to get 2 left for yourself, is a lopsided equation. You should be spending your time doing things you love, something you receive fulfillment and enjoyment out of, but only for the amount of time that it serves this purpose.

At some point, as with anything, diminishing returns sets in. Let’s take a hobby as an example. You love to…garden, there we go. You’re a gardener and you think gardening is the best thing ever, so you garden quite a bit, an hour here and hour there everyday. After awhile you think wouldn’t it be great to able to be a professional gardener? So you get a job over at longwood gardens, and you can garden to your heart’s content. The first couple weeks are great, the next couple weeks are good, and the couple weeks after that…..things start to get a little tiresome. You’re tired of watering the same flowers and pruning the same bushes day in and day out for 8 hours of your day..you want a change.

The problem with a job is that you are forced to do something even if you don’t want to. Don’t feel like crunching the numbers today as an accountant? Too bad. What if I don’t feel like setting up a dealer agreement between our fund family and Bank of America? Out of luck.

Part of the reason so many PF bloggers yearn for financial independence is the ability to do what they want, when they want it. Christine has worked long and hard, planned accordingly, and now has the ability to do just that. If she is tired of working at her current job (she is), she can go and do something else, like move to Spain and try her hand at photography and writing. I hope that as I build up my alternate income and have a safety net of diversified sources, I’ll have the ability to choose what I want to do any given time, too. A lot of people tend to forget that.

So I’ve been giving some thought to the idea that my brother suggested a few days ago, and I think it may in fact be workable. If I was to work on my own, my income threshold would have to be around $32,000 before taxes (I could live on much less, but I’d like to continue an accelerated savings rate). So, if we divy that out by 5 jobs (Feel free to correct my math, not my strong suit)..

$32,000 in income, divided by 52 weeks per year is roughly $615.38 per week.

$615.38 per week divided by 5 days is about $123.08 per day.

$123.08 per day divided by 5 jobs is $24.16 per job

So I need to find 5 different ways to make $24.00 or so a day..doesn’t sound too hard! My freelance writing has locked in this much at number 1, but the rest are not quite there yet….

Alternate income clocked in yesterday at $16.62.

Alternate Income earned yesterday was $5.35, from adsense and a survey!