Bonjour Yakezie!! I am super happy to be here today, although to be honest it feels a bit weird to be alone in front of you all. I am an introvert, and don’t do very well in big groups, but thankfully this awesome group has been opening up to me so it feels safe and warm here. So thanks for having me!
Back to the point. Hi. My name is Pauline, and I blog at Reach Financial Independence. I am 33 and was born in Paris, France, that is where I graduated from business school over 10 years ago and where it all begins. I have always been the good girl. Good grades, no problems, I had half a dozen gigs in high school teaching the piano or tutoring kids while being top of my class, a girl scout, playing the organ at mass, and so on. College was the natural next step and off I went, living with scholarship money and another myriad of small jobs. But during the last year of business school, I started thinking about what was ahead, and dreaded that my life would be pretty much the same for the next 40 years. Wake up, commute, work, commute, sleep, rinse and repeat for 2,000 weeks. It was frightening before it even began.
Time For Something New
I had a bit in savings and decided that after my Masters, I would take off and travel the world for a year. While I could have funded a really comfortable trip (1 year trips are much cheaper than you think, mostly because you don’t fly so much), I chose to invest the money into a rental property, and live off the rental income while I was away. That was my first taste of passive income, and I was hooked. With hitch-hiking, couchsurfing and other creative ways, I managed to fully fund my travels with that small rental, but knew it was not enough to live a comfortable life for the rest of my life.
So the only reason I made it back to the corporate world was to save enough money to buy freedom again. I worked for a law firm in Guatemala, started a business in Barcelona, and spent the last three years of my corporate career in the UK, long enough to get pay slips and buy another rental. During those 6 years of corporate life, I saved aggressively, with one goal in mind: retire when I turn 40 at the latest. Thanks to discipline, hard work and a bit of luck with my investments, I was able to leave my job for good four years ago, at the age of 29. Life has been pretty great ever since.
Before leaving my job, I spent the last two years designing the life I wanted to live. I wanted to keep on traveling or to live somewhere fabulous, warm and sunny (the UK makes you want that really bad). I found a writing gig for a travel website, which would pay me to write about where I went on holidays. My job often sent me all over Europe, and I managed to stay and explore during weekends, so I soon had tons of pictures and content, increasing my freelance income and the size of my nest egg drastically. The website kept growing, expanding internationally, so I took care of translation for them, it gave me exposure to get more freelance contracts, and when I left my job, I was making more with the travel writing than at my day job. I had also bought my place and taken two roommates, and was always on the lookout for extra ways to make money, I waitressed at weddings, did translation jobs, with my goal in mind, I knew any extra money was shaving off days from my freedom date.
One day I ran the numbers again, and if I kept working only freelance, I could leave my job anytime. I decided to move to Morocco for a year, and got a first taste of what being location independent truly meant. As long as I had an internet connection, I could turn my work in.
Motorcycle Adventures And More
A year later, my boyfriend and I started a 10 months trip from Guatemala to Alaska on a motorcycle. We made it to Seattle but it was really cold so we crossed the US to NYC instead. I kept writing a bit about travel, but after more than 5,000 posts I was burned out, and realized that I didn’t need the money anyway, so the next year when we took a 6 months trip from the UK to Turkey, then North Cape in Norway, I dropped it completely. I wanted to write about something else, and I wanted to create my own personal space online, after writing for others for 4 years.
Since 2006 I had been reading tons of PF blogs and I was day dreaming at my desk, devouring stories about early retirement and nomadic lifestyles. I never thought I would be able to start my own site, after a pale attempt during my world trip in 2003, my Dreamweaver skills were rusty, and it took me so much time to tweak code than it was more profitable for me to blog for others.
Then I read all I could find about WordPress, themes, plugins, and Reach Financial Independence was born. Launching a website while on the road, with unreliable internet and changing hotels every night was not the smartest move. I had no time to network, and even though I had been reading blogs for 7 years I had never engaged with other bloggers. When our trip ended, I went out of my blogging cave and started reaching out to people. A couple of months later, I joined Yakezie. My stats improved, I got some PR, and 6 months after opening up to the world, I started making decent money blogging.
Guatemala Move
I bought a house in Guatemala a year ago, with 90 acres of land that we are turning into a residential complex. Our living costs are minimal there, with full time staff, cars and other luxuries, we live on less than $1,000 a month each. My online income is more than covering my living expenses, and it has recently funded a three month trip around Europe for me and my boyfriend. With rental income and dividends I do not need it but it is nice to be able to cover my daily costs without touching my savings.
I live by a lake, in the middle of the Northern Guatemalan jungle, so temptations are scarce if you want to spend money. However I love that my investments have diversified to include some alternative options, like the 150 heads of cattle I got to own, my 90 acres of land that I am fighting the bureaucrats to subdivide and resell, or the little house I am fixing, and turned into a small bed and breakfast. We had our first guests recently! So while I am financially independent, you can’t say that I am retired, that would be boring, and I like to keep busy and find new fun sources of income.
As the blogging went well and was even more fun than I could have imagined, I launched Make Money Your Way back in July, where I talk about all the different ways one can (legally) make money, like real estate, investing, side hustles, improving your career and blogging. Things are going well and since I am not blogging in a cave anymore, it got a much better launch than Reach Financial Independence.
After spending over two months in Europe though, I don’t have as much time for blogging, so I hired a VA and tried to get rid of tasks that do not really benefit my blogs. I love to write but still don’t enjoy the back office work. I am thrilled to be part of the Yakezie family now, and hope we all keep helping each other grow as we go!
One of the best tools I’ve used to help reach financial independence is Personal Capital. They provide great free financial tools for everybody to track their net worth! They allow you to also manage your cash flow and check for pesky investment fees. Check out their newly launched Retirement Planning Calculator as well. It is interactive and based off real data with Monte Carlo simulations to give you the best picture of your financial future!
Updated 6/25/2015
Love your story, Pauline. We have also done some extensive traveling ourselves and will probably resume our ‘nomad’ lives as soon as the daughter is a big older. Really great example of what one can achieve with an open mind and some serious work ;)
Thank you! I read a few blogs of family traveling and even one who has had babies on the road like discovershareinspire.com, I have no idea how they manage it all but it seems to work out great for them!
Well, we’ll have to see. We already booked a 2 week vacation in Croatia for the next year. Our baby (who’s not even born yet), will be around 6 months. It will be a challenge, clearly, but we want her to get used to traveling as soon as possible
Great intro story Pauline, your blog is one that I’ve looked up to ever since I started blogging myself. I also think it’s great that you decided, mid-trip, to forego Alaska due to the cold and head to NY instead. That’s just a taste of what true financial independence is like!
It is generally the norm when you travel long term, you can’t book hotels 3 months in advance and hope that life won’t get in the way, so thankfully we were pretty flexible with the itinerary.
Welcome Pauline! I’ve enjoyed your blogs, and the perspectives shared in your posts.
Hi Pauline! It’s awesome to see you here with your member post, congrats! You have an amazingly unique story, thank you for sharing it! I love how you said it’s easier to travel for a year than we think. I always considering traveling just too expensive so I’m intrigued by your story.
Thank you Monica, to give you an example, I paid around $2,500 for a one year round the world ticket from Europe to Mexico to South America, NZ, Australia, SE Asia, India and back to Europe, I had 12 or so flights over the year. That is the price most people pay for a trip to Europe only, spread over the year it was really cheap, then as a backpacker you can live on less than $2,000 a month in most countries, bringing the cost for a year to $25,000 or so. Most people spend more than this staying home.
Pauline, welcome! Love your story and you have great future, my friend.
Such an exciting story Pauline, thank you for sharing with all of us.
I have always loved your story Pauline. You went out and did exactly what you wanted to do. You are an inspiration! I am glad to be in the same class.
I’ve always appreciate what I’ve learned from reading your blogs. Thanks for sharing your story…I had not read about it in that much detail before.
Really interesting story Pauline. You’ve definitely shown how committed you are to achieving financial independence through multiple income streams. Very inspiring.
Welcome, Pauline! What an exciting introduction. I’m intrigued by your life in Guatemala. How do guests find your B & B?
I have made a little website, I am on Airbnb and in the process of adding it to a few more websites, and RFI doesn’t lack shameless plugs about it :). So far we have had referrals from friends, a few from Airbnb and one via my blog.
Pauline, I don’t know if its the French connection, but your blogs and your story are truly an inspiration for me. Its so amazing that you effectively “retired” from the corporate world at 29. You know what they say – 29 is the new 65!!
totally haha. Well I started early, already had several jobs in high school, which definitely helps.
Pauline, great to have you here! Che Guevara had nothing on your motorcycle trip…
hehe I don’t know if I could take half the inconveniences of traveling half a century ago. It must have been something though.
Awesome story! I hear that South and Central America are great places to start early retirement living.
They are, you can live well on quite a low budget. Healthcare is also affordable and many doctors have a US degree, plus flying back to the US is cheap. I just paid $220 return to go to Miami next year.
Awesome story and what an epic trip form Guatemela to Seattle. The blog is great I’ve learned a lot from it. Wishing you even more success.
I love hearing about your travels and the differences in life in other parts of the globe. It’s what makes your site so fascinating! Welcome to Yakezie, Pauline!
Congrats on becoming a member Pauline! I’ve really enjoyed following along your story and travels. I hope to visit Guatemala one day. It strikes me as a beautiful country rich with culture.
Thank you Sydney, it is an amazing country and there are tons of cool things to do, climb an active volcano, surf in the Pacific, explore Maya ruins, visit villages where the Maya culture is still very present… I could go on for days hehe.