Posted by Canadian Dream on June 23, 2010
If you have been reading my Twitter feed you already know this, but for everyone else: my boss said yes to my proposal to drop down to 80% time starting in July. The paperwork is signed and now making its way through the maze called HR. The plan is for me to have every Friday off, so I’ll have a permanent long weekend (if the six month trial works out fine). If things go well my first Friday off will be on July 2, just in time to make a four day weekend. 
I’m full of mixed emotions at the moment about the decision. On one hand I’m happy and the other I’m a bit shocked. I asked to reduce my hours, but in some respects I didn’t really think they would let me do it. After all it’s very unusual to have a guy in their early thirties ask to work part time. I’m not being sexist here, but it is true. There are a couple of woman I know who have done this at my company or perhaps a person close to retirement, but not a young guy with kids.
The other feeling I’m wresting with is being prepared to let go of my dream of retirement at 45. I haven’t done the math yet, but I’m sure this decision will cost me a fair bit of time on the other end. I’m happy to have more time now, but I’m a little unsure about how I’ll adjust to working longer. I’ve been working towards this dream for a long time and to have to potentially let go of it will be hard.
So how much will this cost me? On the surface you would just take my salary and times it by 20% to get a figure of around $15,000 to $16,000, but the really isn’t correct. Since I pay no longer pay income tax, CPP or EI on the that income, my reduction in after tax pay should be closer to $8500 a year. Which if you work it out means I’m buying my time back for almost half of what my salary pays me an hour. Overall I think I’m getting a steal of a deal on that front.
I’m waiting to get my actual numbers from HR to start modeling the fall out of this decision, but being the numbers geek that I am I did some preliminary modeling. The most obviously short term effect is it is likely impossible to meet my mortgage reduction goal for this year. I just can’t make that short fall up, but I will still try to get my mortgage as close to $78,000 as I can. In the longer term I’ve estimated it will take about an extra 6 months to pay off my mortgage. So rather than it being done by mid-2012 I’ve been pushed back that to late 2012 or very early 2013. Overall a modest impact.
Overall I think the choice will be worth it. I’m so looking forward to my summer now with my board work done until late August. So perhaps all of this goes to show, you never know what you can do until you ask. So how about you? Would you give up 20% of your pay for more time at some point in your career?
Posted by Canadian Dream on April 1, 2010
I recall taking a time management course a few years back that pointed out most things in life are either important and/or urgent. The urgent stuff usually gets done first, regardless of if it is important. For example, do you check your email right after you get a new message at work? 95% of the time it’s only urgent in your mind yet not important to do. So we fill our lives with the little things like checking email meanwhile what is important but not urgent languishes on our to do list for a long time.
I’ve been guilty on not taking this concept far enough in my life. I haven’t been asking myself what’s important to me to obtain my long terms goals of being happy and retiring early. I’m been in a almost pure reaction to what’s urgent at home for months now with regards to happiness. I haven’t asked what is important for me to be happy and how do I make that part of my daily life.
So I have pushed off things that I enjoy like:
- Working on my book more than once every two weeks.
- Starting a new batch of wine.
- Tiling part of my fireplace with granite.
- Planning our garden for spring and planting some seeds indoors.
Instead I keep working on things that just come up, so I end up reacting rather than planning my life. Therefore if you have noticed my blog posts have been lack luster for a while, you can blame that on I’ve been on autopilot for months now. I haven’t felt engaged in much of what I’ve been doing so my creative process on ideas for posts which was often a fire hose at times has lately been a trickle. That to me is a sure sign of something is wrong, but I wasn’t ready to see it.
This entire revelation came out of a meeting with my boss at my day job in which we were talking about strategic planning for our department. Which to me is very ironic that it took my day job to tell me why I had been unhappy at home.
So this weekend I’m going to do more things that I enjoy (like those listed above) and spend some time thinking on what matters most in my life and ask how am I getting there? It’s time for a happiness reboot and for me to turn off the autopilot.
Have you ever spent a long while in autopilot? How did you snap out of it?
Posted by Canadian Dream on March 31, 2010
Ok, I normally only do net worth updates every second month, but this month is an exception. I ran the numbers to confirm not my net worth, but rather what my investment net worth . So in total my investment net worth is $108,300 which is now more than my mortgage balance $107,900. So as you can see below I hit a cross over point of the yellow and blue lines (click image to see a larger version).
This cross over isn’t nearly exciting of a cross over as being financially independent, but it is exciting to me regardless. Since it represents my mortgage is on such a decline I could sell every investment I own and nearly pay it off (I would be short the tax penalty from taking out of my RRSP’s). I don’t plan on doing that, but it is merely an option.
In some regards this is meaningless number with just two lines crossing over on a graph. Yet I’ve gave it meaning in order to keep me motivated on this path. I’ve always found I do better with longer term goals is I have little steps on the way there.
So as I go into this long weekend I intend to celebrate a bit on making it to this point. I’ve got a long way to go, but at least I’m getting there. (By the way, no posts on Friday or next Monday I’m taking the weekend off.)
