Miserable at Work Part 2

I know I left everyone on quite the cliffhanger on my previous post. That’s the kind of person I am; suspenseful and mysterious.

Okay, so the key to breaking the cycle is to download Reddit and join pages like antiwork, work, coworkerstories, ManagedByNarcissists, and recruitinghell. I know going on Reddit is not a real solution. But just trust me on this one. Going on these pages specifically and reading the stories people share is like a form of therapy. You’ll find yourself shaking your head at the stories you read, but you’ll also find yourself relating to these people and the comments shared are very helpful.

For me, I am miserable at my job. But I have a light at the end of the tunnel. I won’t spend my prime years working until I’m 65. I plan on retiring in the next 5 or so years or semi retiring. The way to breaking the cycle is to attain financial freedom. It’s to have enough money generating for you that you no longer need to work.

To achieve this is obviously easier said than done. To not have any student loan debt, car payments, to make enough money to live comfortably without working. Obviously, this is not easy to do. Here is what I did in my life to get closer to financial freedom:

1. I decided when I was 23 I was going to work 2 full time jobs to maximize my earnings. I worked a day job 40 hours a week and a night job 45 hours a week. I did this for 2 years. There’s pros and cons to this. I sacrificed my social life, I lost my relationship, I lost most of my friends. I was always exhausted but I had a goal and wasn’t going to let anyone or anything get in my way. By age 25 I had over 100k saved up and used this money to buy my first house.

2. Generating multiple streams of income. Now that I owned my first place, I decided to quit one of my jobs and rent my place out to get a rental income. I was making around 80k from my job and bringing in another 24k per year from my rental income. This allowed me to pay down my mortgage and save up enough money to buy a second property. By age 29, I had 2 properties generating income for me.

3. I limited my spending, I lived below my means. I was that guy walking around with a iPhone 6 when everyone had iPhone 12’s. The goal has always been attaining financial freedom. So I lived on a budget. I drove a cheap car, I took no time off from work, I didn’t purchase any clothes or shoes. Instead, I asked for them as birthday and Christmas presents.

Reading this may put you off from the work it takes to reach fiancial freedom. The sacrifices I made were not easy. One could make an argument saying I wasted my 20s doing nothing but working and living on a budget. But god dammit I don’t want to spend my entire life working and not getting anywhere. I’ve almost reached a point where my rental properties are generating more money than my job. In a couple years I plan on buying my 3rd property and then my 4th and 5th property. My freedom number is 5. I believe 5 rental properties is what I need to quit my job and live comfortably for the rest of my life.

There’s lots of people who talk about wanting to travel, experience new adventures, live their lives to the fullest. But how can you live your life to the fullest if you’re always broke or struggling? If you’re always worried about the future. Don’t get me wrong, I want to travel the world, but when I go on vacations I like to be able to buy whatever I want and have no limitations financially. Currently, I’ve reached a point in my life where I can begin to scale back how much I work and enjoy my life.

If you want to change your situation you need to be able to make the sacrifices and put in the work required to do so.