Heather
When I was a kid, I knew it was never a good thing to quit. My mother made me stay in Brownies and Girl Guides long after the charm had warn off. When I struggled with grade 12 math, she made me finish it even though I didn’t want to. She said quitting was not a good thing.
In this case we think being a quitter is kind of exciting! On March 29th, 2018 Matt and I left work for the last time to join the retired club. It’s exciting but a little bit scary at the same time.. likely because of all the questions we don’t have answers to.
We aren’t the only ones with questions.
Our retirement announcement was met with so many questions from friends and family. Some of them stemmed from disbelief while others were from the perspective of how they can do it themselves. In the absence of answers to all of our questions we thought we would answer a few of the questions we do have answers to. Perhaps in the process we will know a few more answers ourselves!
Q. But you don’t golf.. I thought that’s what people did when they retired.
A. Retirement is an interesting word. It creates an image in people’s minds of being old and sitting around at the coffee shop with other retirees. We have decided that it was time for a major life change – like having a baby, graduating from University, or accepting that major promotion but one we could define to meet our needs. For us, retirement means exploring, travelling, and generally doing the things we love together, all the time not just for a few weeks each year.
Q.What are you doing with your house?
A. We rented it fully furnished! This income is funding a good chunk of our travels and we have great support to keep our tenants happy and taking great care of our house.
Q. What are you doing with all your stuff?
A. We made mad money on Kijiji (online buy and sell platform) and it is interesting what people will buy. In general, we aren’t really tied to our stuff (camping equipment excluded) and would rather have the few things we need with us than a bunch of stuff we don’t need but have to put somewhere. That said, Heather’s mother now has a garage full of camping equipment, photo albums, and the last few things we couldn’t decide what to do with!
Q. What will it cost to do what you are doing?
A. Likely more than we have! But in our retirement we can do all sorts of things to make more money: “Welcome to Walmart.”
Q. Did you really quit or just take a leave?
A. Nope – quit.. unemployed – eligible for employment insurance benefits.
Q. Will you ever work again?
A. Define work. We will likely trade our time for stuff of value – like room and board. If we land somewhere long enough we may volunteer with a local charity. We also don’t know what the future holds, so if there was a longer term contract on offer we might just say yes. There is a cool site called workaway that we will use to find unique stuff to do and we will also likely end up housesitting somewhere. As a worst case scenario, I look good in blue: “Welcome to Walmart.”
Q. Did you have a retirement party?
A. Many – we milked this going away for all it was worth! The excitement of leaving was tempered as we said goodbye to so many wonderful friends. We are lucky, lucky people!
Q. When did you decide to do this?
A. We can’t actually pinpoint the exact date, but it has been a topic of discussion for years. We asked ourselves lots of “what if” type questions and dreamt about a life of full time travel. Then, we started testing our theories of how it could work for us. When we traveled for a year it was proof that renting our house was viable and we could spend a lot of time together as a couple. From there the conversation just seemed to be less “what if” and more “when.” At some point we made the decision and started acting on these decisions until March 29th came.
Q. Are you ever coming home?
A. Of course! Calgary and area, has some of the best people we know and we just can’t stay away. Also- we are really well set up to bike for months, but would need to change out our gear if we were going to be in South East Asia for months on end. For those of you reading this that are worried you won’t ever see us again – not to worry.. we will be those retired people with nothing but time on their hands who want to just drop in and chat!
Q. What is your first adventure?
A. We are going to Winnipeg! Well.. for a night or so. Then we take a hard right and head due south to Mobile Alabama. From there we hop on our trusty touring bikes and pedal 3,500 km’s to Owen Sound Ontario on the Underground Railroad Bike route. The bike route follows bike friendly roads and will take us through some historic points of interest along with museums. This tour is self supported which means we will have everything we need strapped to our bikes and we will be camping along the way! We both know lots about camping, and living outside….but not a lot about bike touring, so it should be a good learning curve!
After that we have a canoe trip with great friends on the Rideau Canal, a backpacking trip on Baffin Island, and Travel Con – a conference in Austin Texas. There are a few ideas and plans for the rest of 2018 but nothing concrete, so if you know of someone with a home in a warm climate that needs it to be taken care of, let us know!
Those are the questions we know the answers to right now. The coolest part of making a major life change is all the learning that happens along the way – especially when the learning is the answers to questions you didn’t even know you had! Please, if you have any questions we didn’t answer above leave it in the comments below and we will do our best to answer them!
