How we came to live at the intersection of slow travel and low expenses.
Hello from Bali!
The reason why we’re traveling so much these days is because Ajeossi finally quit his job. It’s not exactly due to FIRE (early retirement) because he may return to work for the right position, and we’re not at our ideal FIRE numbers yet. But the bottom line is he’s not working and I work part-time remotely, and that gives us flexibility to travel.
FIRE fanatics and JL Colins fans (if you’re not familiar with him, take a look at his manifesto) know all about the importance of F-you Money, a savings goal that gives you the freedom to walk away from anything. F-you Money is the dream, but I also like to apply the same philosophy to something else: F-you Expenses.
F-you Expenses is when your living expenses are fixed so low that you don’t really need a high-paying job to have the life you want. It’s when losing a job or being laid off can be a shock or disappointment, but it won’t drastically affect the quality of your life. It’s when your workplace gets too toxic for it to really be worth it, which is what happened to Ajeossi. His work was generally okay, but a new manager had made it insufferable. So instead of bearing it like a typical, responsible, adult head of the household, he decided to quit. Because he had F-you Expenses (and an amazing, loving wife who has a steady stream of freelance work).
I like F-you Expenses more than F-you Money because anyone can do it. F-you Money can take years to reach, but F-you Expenses can happen overnight if you want it to. It took us a few months to plan it, but our F-you Expenses happened immediately once we relocated to the countryside (and our kids couldn’t have been more happier about it).
While traveling around the world doesn’t exactly qualify as F-you Expenses, I do believe there is a time and place for everything. We spent a few years saving and investing aggressively, but when unemployment/remote work aligns with some savings and income, you should take advantage of it. We’ll be scheduling our longer travels during the kids’ school break, so it won’t be the kind of extreme nomadic or living on the road life you see online, but it will be our version of it. I’ve created a separate Instagram account for these travels with kids, aptly named 아이 월드스쿨 (@iworldschooltravel – the “i” stands for 아이, or child in Korean) and I hope to share more there.
I spend a lot of time researching fun and educational experiences for the kids, so I look forward to sharing the info, and tips I’ve learned along the way. But I’m most excited about sharing how we plan and budget these trips with a breakdown of numbers, which is I think a big barrier to international travel for a lot of Koreans after language (spoiler alert: a week in Jeju is pricier than many other destinations in Southeast Asia!). Price transparency when traveling makes my heart sing, and I hope it will be insightful for some of my friends and followers too. 🙂