Financial Transitioning from One Lifestyle to Another of Your Choosing

(I welcome your comments and questions through the "comments" option below any entry. --Laura)

To most people who have asked how on earth we have managed to move from a city life in the South to a bush cabin in Alaska, my quip has been “my husband’s mid-life crisis.”   Some nod sagely, as though they KNEW it had to be something like that, and then turn to other subjects. Others, though, don’t let us off the hook so easily.  They lean in and inquire, “No, really, how?”  I sense a plaintiveness in the question:  Maybe it means: “I once wanted to do something like that.  Maybe it means:  “How does one let go?”    My impression is that the subtext of these questions is how do you shed a lifestyle loaded with heavy financial and time commitments, like mortgages, car loans, tuition payments, business and social obligations, and all the things we think we are “supposed to buy and do.”  

We did not transition quickly.  It took many years, starting before Alaska was even considered.  While other blog entries describe our life off the beaten path, this entry attempts to reconstruct concrete changes we made that anyone might implement, in advance, in the city, on the job, in order to enable lifestyle changes of their choosing.

I think of the process like brushing a dog.  You’ll be surprised by the amount of light weight dead hair you remove from a dog.  Afterward, s/he looks exactly the same (or better) and you don't miss the dead hair. 

My three pieces of advice follow, with examples for each:

1)    Shed expenses you don’t value

2)    Shed commitments that cost more in time and money than you value 

3)    By doing 1 and 2, you will become more intentional.  You will create a “values map” that makes either/or choices clearer, enabling you to free up dollars and hours you can allocate in different ways more to your liking.

Business Benefits Accrued from Life in the Bush

Sometimes, we encounter an absolute culture block about our life in Alaska.  Usually it is because the person perceives ours as a life of such privation, analogous to a New Yorker who can’t imagine living in New Jersey, or a couple with children who can’t imagine a home without them.  Another culture block is from those who can’t envision working remotely.  However, as more and more people do the latter (I read that 1/3 of all IT professionals work remotely),  we encounter less resistance from workers than from retirees whose life experience required a commute to an office in order to be paid.

This blog entry describes time management/business benefits we gained from living in the Alaska bush that we never expected, largely from something very simple: intentionality.  Another entry describes non business gains (physical, psychological, and marital).