The Case for the One-Year Sabbatical

You know how sometimes it feels like the universe is trying to drop a truth bomb in your lap?

This past week, it feels like every piece of content I consume has one strange theme in common. Maybe I’m predisposed to it right now, but I can’t help but feel like the powers that be are trying to nudge me in a certain direction.

Enter: The one-year sabbatical.

Experiments in early retirement

I want you to imagine for a moment the lifestyle of someone who’s trying to attain early retirement (hell, maybe that’s you – this may not be much of a reach):

You’re constantly prioritizing high-paying work so you can earn more. You’re spending less to avoid slowing yourself down. You’re stealing doggy bags from the park to avoid having to buy more on Amazon.

FI is a hard path to pursue in moderation, because it has a very distinct, “Rush to the finish line!” vibe.

Sure, you may not intend to take things to extremes, but for high-achieving, goal-oriented people, the slope from, “I’m going to make my own lunch more,” to, “I created an algorithm at work to identify which meetings are catered and hacked my way onto the invite lists,” is a slippery one.

So imagine you do that for about a decade, plowing mercilessly forward toward your FI date. You hand in your two weeks’ notice.

It’s the best feeling!

…and then… that’s it.

Slam on the brakes, and throw it in reverse.

No more work. No more income. In fact, not only are you not adding more income to your pile that you’ve been tending like Scrooge McDuck reincarnate, you’re actually going to start using some of that money! That’s right. No more contributions. It’s #withdrawal time, baby.

A lot of early retirees have major beef with this shift, especially if they’ve spent the last 10 years doing nothing but cultivating a fat net worth.

It begs the question:

Should you rush to the finish line if you have nothing to do when you get there?

What happens if you pull the plug on the only thing that you do all the day and discover that you actually don’t have any other hobbies or interests to fill your time?

And not only that, but you have to start withdrawing from your precious brokerage accounts.

The bottom line? It feels really backwards and foreign. Frugality is a lifestyle in the same way that luxury is a lifestyle. If you’ve conditioned yourself to work for 12 hours per day for 10 years, that transition can be jarring.

That’s the case for testing the waters with a one-year sabbatical

When I first heard the idea of a one-year sabbatical, I was like, “That’s insane! Why would you slow your progress? I’m only 5 years from FI – I need to keep my foot on the gas!”

But think about it – what difference does it make if I have one of my retirement years now, and the rest in 6 years from now? Am I in that big of a rush? Are you?

A one-year sabbatical gives you the time and mental bandwidth to fully disconnect from your life as you know it and discover what, exactly, you’d actually do with a ton of free time.

Because here’s the thing: We all like to romanticize what we’d do if we didn’t have to work. Live in Southeast Asia! Learn another language! Become a great cook! Backpack across Europe! Sleep until noon!

The reality? You’ll find out just how much you really want those things when you give yourself 365 days to experience them.

We all have aspirations, but when we live in our safe, small, 9-5 bubbles, we get the privilege of shielding ourselves from walking the walk.

“I can’t go backpack across Europe for three months – I have a job, Karen!” All right – what if you didn’t have a job? You’re free. Now what?

It’s scary, but it’s a “scary” we all need to face now if we think early retirement is the goal.

How to walk away from work for a year

I listened to a podcast recently about this topic, and the coach being interviewed was very frank about the fact that most people’s excuses for not being able to do this are just that – excuses.

Deep down, the fear is obvious: What if I can’t find work again?

The expert suggested sending out an email at the beginning of your sabbatical to your entire professional network and letting them know your intentions: That you’re taking a one-year sabbatical, but you intend to return to the workforce and to let you know if they hear of any interesting opportunities in your field over the next few months.

She said the types of opportunities that arise for her coaching clients are insane. Why? Because everyone else in America is really f***ing uncomfortable with the idea of you not working.

“Trust me,” she said, “Your network will want you to find another job, because it’ll make them feel weird as hell that you’re not employed.” Turns out misery loves company.

She said that – in most instances – the people who walk away for a year end up with a better, higher-paying opportunity after the fact (this is especially true for those who have been with the same company for a long time).

What this would look like in my own life

I’ve written in the past about how – originally – Money with Katie was a hobby that I figured would entertain me in early retirement, not make any money.

It was only after Money with Katie started out-earning my full-time job 2:1 that I realized it may actually be the way out.

If I were to take a sabbatical from full-time work for a year, I wouldn’t quit “working” entirely – I’d just run Money with Katie. I wouldn’t withdraw money from my FI funds – I’d use the money I make from Money with Katie to support my lifestyle and invest the difference.

This is obviously an entrepreneurial twist on the idea, but it’s similar in that it involves walking away from traditional work and exploring only doing what you plan to do in early retirement.

Where money comes into the picture

I don’t think this is something that anyone can do regardless of financial situation – you need to have enough saved to support you through the year.

The other twenty-somethings I’ve spoken to who plan on doing this have net worths of more than $350,000 already (from the aforementioned relentless pursuit of FI).

If you’ve got $25 to your name and you’ve been in the workforce for six months, I’m sorry – the sabbatical is not for you.

But that’s not to say everyone couldn’t plan for this.

If you knew you were about to be on a year-long vacation, how would you approach your life differently now? Would you feel comfortable working more? Finding temporary higher-paying work? Turning down expensive outings for the time being?

Realistically, as long as you know how much your life costs, you already have the keys to the freedom castle. I know I need $3,000/mo. to live comfortably. At that rate, once I had $36,000 saved, I could take a year off.

And who knows what I’d discover in that time? Who knows what work would present itself on the other side?

A busy schedule is the enemy of clarity.

A quote from Tim Ferriss to summarize

“The thing is, most Americans…see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now.

Instead – out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need – we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called “lifestyle,” travel becomes just another accessory – a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase in the same way we buy clothing and furniture.

Not long ago, I read that nearly 250,000 short-term monastery and convent-based vacations had been booked and sold by tour agents the previous year. Spiritual enclaves from Greece to Tibet were turning into hot tourist draws, and travel pundits attributed this ‘solace boom’ to the fact that ‘busy overachievers are seeking a simpler life.’

What nobody bothered to point out, of course, is that purchasing a package vacation to find a simpler life is kind of like using a mirror to see what you look like when you aren’t looking in the mirror…no combination of 1-week or 10-day vacations will truly take you away from the life you lead at home.

The more we associate experiences with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we’re too poor to buy our freedom.” [Tools of Titans, page 363.]

Thanks, Timmy. You nailed it.

You may also like these posts:

1. A Thought Experiment in “Mini Retirement”: What’s Baby FI?

2. Why You Actually Need Less to Retire Now (Than in 30 Years from Now)

3. What Actually Happens When You Retire Early?

4. Why I Want to Retire Early