FREEDOM LIFESTYLE

Wanna Be Rich? Try Investing in Time and Freedom

Life is like scales and the money is just on one side. Funny thing is that since I let go, the money starts to flow abundantly.

This is not a fuzzy story, telling you not to care about money. However, it is a story giving you perspective and telling you not to care ONLY about money.

I must be honest and tell you I’ve never really cared about money in my life. But then, I have never really been poor. After my studies, I landed good jobs, climbed some ranks, and had a relatively comfortable life.

Whenever I wanted something and didn’t know what to choose, my former husband said: “Choose both.” It was the easiest option at the time… although I often felt guilty about climate change, inequality, and all the big problems in the world.

I lived a life of purpose always, yes. But I never really knew how to embrace purpose until some external factors changed. My worldview toppled over. I started to realize how I could care for the world. How I could really make a difference.

I became a freelancer, I learned about what’s really important to me and now I live the freedom lifestyle, a term I borrowed from Rasheed Hooda.

My lesson?

Life is like scales. Left is the money. Right is time and freedom. And if you have loads of money, you’ll be working hard, live in a rat race, and have no freedom.

I know I did. After a long day at work, I slumped on the couch and binge-watched some TV. My health suffered, my sleep suffered and I didn’t have the energy to change anything about my life.

I didn’t even know I was not happy. I liked my job. I loved my husband. And every year we went on holiday to have a little adventure. It was enough, I thought. I didn’t have higher ambitions.

But inside something gnawed. Is this all there is to life?

And then I soothed the questions of my heart with my rational head and said, this is the only way. The normal way.

But, frankly, it isn’t. I know now.

The Freedom Lifestyle

Fast forward. The freedom lifestyle.

I live in Europe and it’s hard to afford a normal home if you don’t have a secure job to get a mortgage. Social housing is scarce, there are long waiting lists. And the free rental market is very expensive.

Also, after my divorce, I discovered that living in nature in a small house gives me the vibe I need for my work and my life.

So I choose to live on a camping site in a caravan. And my partner in life and work now, Mike, joined me there. It’s a good choice for us, for now. We have more money to spend on good organic food, we have the freedom to travel when our work takes us to further away places. And nature’s energy in this place supports us tremendously!

Friends of mine choose to live nomadically or live in another country to make life affordable. They are mindful people and want to combine their passions in life with their bank account. If you’re interested, you might want to follow people like the aforementioned Rasheed Hooda or Livia Dabs.

I now choose to build my freelance practice in the manner that the influencers do. But without the product selling (not ethical for me, I want to be independent) or the spamming (email lists, pushing and trying to convince are not for me).

I thrive on support and give it freely and abundantly to others.

And guess what?

The moment I found my unique voice in writing last year and shed my hesitance to become fully visible my freelance practice flourishes.

I became an external expert for the European Commission, I’ve been asked to come to Indonesia, to Greece, to Ibiza, and to Spain to help communities there align the economy with the ecology and I’m happier than ever.

Still, I’m in the corporate or academic life sometimes (when I choose it), but mostly I lead a life of time and freedom. Freelance. Free spirit.

Tips and Tricks

So, how do I do it? There are some things to consider when you want to go on this road to freedom. Here are three tips that I found helpful.

1. Experimenting with my own comfort zones and see how the simple life works for me
2. Choosing my own right livelihood based on my talents
3. Embracing supportive people in my life

1. Comfort Zones

Making the jump from a comfortable house in a nice, safe suburb to a caravan site has not been one big jump. I’ve done it in stages. Some of it was forced (my divorce), some of it was choice (quitting my job and starting to be freelance).

But whatever you choose to do to make your life more simple and lower the costs on the spending side, experimenting with my comfort zones helped me.

And I’ll not be sugar-coating, a caravan has its disadvantages. It needs more maintenance, better care. It’s cold in winter although we have a great pellet stove now. And there’s always moist, so we need to take care there’s no mold.

The upside is that my world became so much richer in perspectives! I have more time without a TV and lots of scary news stories. And I use that time for healthy sleep or reflection and meditation.

And last winter, we went to live for three months in Indonesia. I could live comfortably with just a kamar mandi there. It’s a bathroom where we throw cold water over our bodies with a bowl.

And if you shiver thinking about these low comfort zones of mine, you can try there first steps:

• Make your wardrobe simple. Throw out everything you never wear. Keep a few quality pieces and make sure you can combine them easily
• Don’t spend time in shopping centers anymore. And be aware when you have an urge to buy something. Questions to ask: do I need it? Is this my ego who wants to impress? What would living be without it? Visualize and then decide
• Make visible how much you have saved by not spending. Do something you love with this money. Invest it in personal development or a writing course
• Realize that every day you can take a tiny step. Don’t forget to look back after three months to see how much progress you made. Celebrate by doing something you are passionate about
• And if you fall back, don’t play the blame card. Be your own best friend! I fell back so many times before I found my feet in my currently simple and happy life.

2. Right Livelihood

What is a right livelihood? I think the website of the Right Livelihood Award explains it well.

“The idea of ‘right livelihood’ is an ancient one. It embodies the principle that each person should follow an honest occupation, which fully respects other people and the natural world. It means being responsible for the consequences of our actions and taking only a fair share of the earth’s resources.” — The Right Livelihood Award

And the good thing is that you can find your own unique way of earning a living if you take all your money streams into account. The receiving ones and the spending ones.

One piece of advice: combine the flows. Creating several smaller flows is easier than having only one stream of income. It’ll give you diversity and it’ll give you time and freedom to choose and change things if you are fed up with one stream.

I’ll give you some examples of my friends in transition.

One friend wants to transition from IT to permaculture and connection to nature. He now has a two-day job in cooking and experiments with his permaculture on the side.

One day, another friend made a list of what’s important in her life. Healthy food came up top. But in real-life, her money played hide and seek in her house. So, she became nomadic. She’s a university lecturer, lives with just one backpack, and has a few essential things stored at her mother’s place.

Tips for a right livelihood:

• Always keep sight of the full picture of income streams and spending
• Experiment with online ways of making money. There are many stories to be found on Medium about freelance work experiences of others
• Land a few-day job to at least have the basics met
• Grow your own food as part of your livelihood
• Make sure you know what your talents are. I know people combining organic farming with metal tools and wooden furniture making. I know an entrepreneur who went bankrupt and found her feet with painting and coaching others on the path of transition

3. Embrace Supportive People

This third one has been so very important to me! I know family and old friends aren’t always so supportive. And you can’t (and don’t want to) ditch them. My solution?

I did a little exercise with myself. I drew my social circle. Me in the middle, circles around with people close or less close. And I started giving them their rightful place. Some I wanted closer (and I actively start spending more time with them), some shifted to the edge.

With the ones still close and not so supportive, I train my compassion skills.

And I made space for new friends. People who understand and support me.

The circle I still draw every half year or so. To see if the lay of the land has changed. To see with whom my priorities are right now in my life.

Happy living, my friends. The freedom lifestyle rocks!

Next time I’ll share some of the influencer tips I use to make my freelance practice flourish.

If you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or my website. Or somewhere in nature following my passions…

Further Reading

About the author:

About my work on new business models