How I Plan to Quit the Rat Race

The following is a guest post from Father Sez.

Somewhere in the bottom of my heart, I have always had the urge to be independent. The urge not to have anyone directing or controlling me. I think this trait has been there for the longest time.

This strong character trait coupled with poor self management skills have resulted in my mismanaging my career. Though I have been very fortunate in having been placed at the highest corporate levels at a very young age, I did not manage the situation well enough to have extracted the full benefits.

Since discovering personal finance and self development blogs not too long ago, I have sobered down quite a bit. Enough to realize and write about my mismanagement of my career being one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

I am presently on contract, which has less than a year to run. The ominous expiry of this contract will give me another shot at quitting the rat race and I intend to manage this much, much better.

I have crafted a plan. Based on advice from some of the PF blogs I respect and read very regularly, this plan is something I feel I can follow and should fulfill my desire for independence. 

I checked carefully Trent’s writings on how he prepared for his quitting as well as what he wanted to do after quitting. Equally carefully, I digested Ms. SVB’s story on her leaving the 9 – 5. FMF, my career specialist, had some views on this subject in his well organized archives.

This is my take.

1. Clarify and list my “why’s.”

In addition to my strong desire to just throw off the golden handcuffs, I want to:

a) Devote more time to my family. I am guilty of having, just short of abandoned, my two elder girls when they were growing up. I was working in Africa and India and before I knew it, they were ready to enter college.

I have another chance with my three younger children and I want to do my level best to guide them as much as I can.

Financially, their education appears to be the biggest bill in my horizon. By spending time with them now, I hope to be able to much improve their chances at securing scholarships or grants.

b) I want to spend more time on my writing. One is my blog. Another two writing projects I would like to take up are a book on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises starting businesses in developing countries, and another on condensing the lessons I am preaching to my children.

My experiences in Ghana and India (which were both essentially start ups) will stand to good stead for the first book. I already have a 1st draft of the second book. It is a little slanted towards Muslim children. I am hoping to find a partner to write a Christian version, as I am sure, the religious verses I quote in the book would have equally and perhaps more inspirational cousins from the Bible. 

c) I want to spend more time on my side businesses. My wife and I have started a goat farm, which should start being operational in April this year. In addition, we have a stake in a small telecommunication contracting company. Malaysian Telecoms has announced very ambitious plans for broadband network expansion and we hope to secure some slices of this.

We have also signed a contract to build telecom towers in Indonesia, on a Build and Lease basis. This contract has just been dealt a nasty blow with the Indonesian Government passing a decree placing this business in their negative list for foreign participation. We still believe that this project is salvageable and are working on different angles now.

d) I want to spend more time on myself. Things like exercise, traveling, reading and the like. 

2. Review my sources of finances and outflows.

Reduce as much as possible my fixed expenses, as income now may be irregular.

My biggest outflow item now is my debt servicing. It’s very high for someone in my stage of life and my wife and I have taken steps to eliminate this debt.

We have put up one of our investment properties for sale and, just today, I got a call from our real estate agent that there was beginning to be strong interest. (And this was after following sound advice by FMF.)

The other major item of my two elder girls’ college education is just about to be done with. On the 23rd of April 08, I’ll say goodbye to this outflow.

My wife and I now have a budget to live by. Money matters are discussed more openly and I believe that with the debt servicing and the two elder girls’ education costs out of the way, my “cost of living” will dive to a very reasonable level.

We live now in a relative rural setting. Not too far from the Federal capital (where I now work), but still out enough to be considered rural. So expenses are a lot less. (I do spend more on the commute, though).

My income projections are a lot less firm. Income from the goat farm and the telecom company should be my main sources.

I am looking forward to Lynnae’s coming post on budgeting on an irregular income. In the meantime, it’s cut as much expenses as we can.

3. Prepare at least outline plans on what I intend to do after quitting.

I have already done this as part of my goal setting for 2008. I just have to keep fine tuning as I go along.

4. Re-look at my insurances and check for adequacy, especially health insurances.

My wife and I have had our own insurances for a long time. I’ll check the adequacy etc with a knowledgeable friend I have made through blogging, KC Lau.

And lastly, I’ll remember and remind myself often, not to quit my job in midstream.  Like FMF’s career reminder says, even a miserable job is better than having no job.

(In the event, that my boss offers me a contract renewal, I’ll be asking for a telecommuting option. This should allow me at least an additional 2 – 3 hours a day, something that comes to almost an extra working day a week.)

Comments

[fathersez]

Thanks, FMF for this opportunity to guest post. I hope I do not let down your readers.

Regards

[Anna]

Good Luck with your goals! The first step is clearly defining what you want and that is what you did! :)

Anna