What’s up Fiery Mil­len­ni­als! For those of you don’t know me, I’m Cody — a 22-year old entre­pre­neur sprint­ing down the path to finan­cial inde­pen­dence. I cur­rent­ly run the per­son­al finance blog Fly to FI and co-found­ed the disc golf com­pa­ny, Arse­nal Discs. I am con­stant­ly try­ing my hand at new ven­tures and hope­ful­ly, some­day, I can com­fort­ably live off of my entre­pre­neur­ial income. That’s the plan anyway!

My Current Situation

After grad­u­at­ing from col­lege one semes­ter ear­ly, I trav­eled abroad in Aus­tralia with my girl­friend Lau­ren for five months. Dur­ing our trav­els, our biggest dai­ly con­cerns were what to eat for lunch and how the weath­er was look­ing. When we arrived home on June 26^th… BOOM! — I received a punch in the face from reality.

I arrived back in the States exact­ly 13 days before the start of my nine-to-five bank­ing job. No won­der why they say 13 is an unlucky num­ber. Don’t get me wrong, the job looks great on paper. The pay is gen­er­ous, my boss is awe­some, my team is fun, and the com­pa­ny respects work-life bal­ance. How­ev­er, despite any of the afore­men­tioned ben­e­fits… I still have to sit behind a desk for 8 hours per day, 5 days per week!

Now, this kind of think­ing might sound crazy to a “nor­mal” per­son, but I know that I’m safe here with you fel­low FI-Seekers 🙂

There is so much more to life than slog­ging away behind a com­put­er screen every day at an unful­fill­ing nine-to-five. 

A Typical Day: Then and Now

In Aus­tralia, a typ­i­cal day would look like this:

• Wake up (when­ev­er I felt like it)
• Make break­fast with Lau­ren (my girlfriend)
• Go to the gym
• Work on Fly to FI and Arse­nal Discs
• Make lunch with Lauren
• Do a fun activ­i­ty (hik­ing, bik­ing, sight­see­ing, explor­ing, you name it!)
• Make din­ner with Lauren
• Lap­top work / Chill & watch a movie / Go out club­bing (depend­ing on the night)
• Hit the hay!

Now, after com­ing back to real­i­ty, a typ­i­cal day is far less glam­orous. See for yourself.

• Wake up at 5:45 AM
• Show­er and wolf down breakfast
• Dri­ve 15 min­utes to the train station
• Sit on the train for 1 hour 20 minutes
• Walk 15 min­utes to work
• Arrive at work around 8:45 AM
• Sit behind a com­put­er screen for 8 hours
• Leave work around 5:30 PM
• Walk 15 min­utes back to the station
• Sit on the train home for 1 hour 10 minutes
• Dri­ve 10 min­utes to the gym
• Lift for 1 hour
• Get home at 8:45 PM
• Eat din­ner
• Catch up on some house­keep­ing items (depend­ing on my energy)
• Go to bed
• Repeat!

The Pitfalls of the Nine-to-Five

There are so many neg­a­tive con­se­quences asso­ci­at­ed with the nine-to-five lifestyle, espe­cial­ly one that involves sit­ting behind a desk all day. I’ll share with you all of the things that I’ve noticed so far.

Time Inflexibility

It is so incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for me to book appoint­ments, com­plete house­hold chores, or offer my time to help fam­i­ly and friends now that I have this nine-to-five job. I feel like I either have to squeeze all of my “admin­is­tra­tive” items into the week­end or the late hours of the night.

Even if the tasks men­tioned above seem mar­gin­al­ly unim­por­tant, what hap­pens when some­one REALLY needs me? I can’t con­stant­ly be there if one of my fam­i­ly mem­bers becomes ill or dis­abled. It’s dev­as­tat­ing to think about, but it’s the harsh real­i­ty of the nine-to-five grind.

An Entrepreneur’s Schedule

As an entre­pre­neur, I get to choose when I want to work! I can make appoint­ments, com­plete chores when­ev­er I want, and gen­er­ous­ly lend my time to friends and fam­i­ly. I’m not con­strained to the rigid nine-to-five schedule.

In no way am I say­ing that entre­pre­neur­ship is easy and absent of “real” work. I’ve stayed up until 5 AM work­ing on a pas­sion project before. Why? Because I want­ed to! That’s the beau­ty of entre­pre­neur­ship. You are the mas­ter of time and com­man­der of your schedule.

Lack of Exercise

Whether you like it or not, exer­cise is a cru­cial part of a healthy life. Who cares how much mon­ey you have if you aren’t healthy enough to enjoy it?! That’s my phi­los­o­phy anyway.

Since start­ing my nine-to-five, my activ­i­ty lev­el has decreased dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Like I men­tioned above in my dai­ly sched­ule, I still make it to the gym almost every day of the work week … but my ses­sions feel rushed. This is vast­ly worse than the mul­ti­ple hours of exer­cise I was get­ting every day in Australia.

No mat­ter how many 15-minute walks I take through­out my work­day, it just does­n’t com­pare. I need to be active! I can’t stand sit­ting still for long peri­ods of time. This seden­tary lifestyle is cer­tain­ly a detri­ment to my over­all health and I plan to change this as soon as possible.

Fiscal Fitness

Ide­al­ly, I want to recap­ture the time to focus on my fit­ness. As an entre­pre­neur, I can enjoy a jog, hike, or bike ride on a nice day and get my work done at night. Stay­ing in shape is so impor­tant to me and sit­ting behind a desk isn’t quite cut­ting it.

Minimal Fulfillment or Autonomy

I don’t know about you, but in my nine-to-five, I often have to work on projects and assign­ments that I’m not seri­ous­ly pas­sion­ate about. As I work on these tasks and projects, I can feel my life hours slow­ly drain­ing away. It’s miserable!

If you’ve ever thought “Why am I even doing this?” dur­ing an assign­ment, you know exact­ly what I’m talk­ing about. It’s impos­si­ble to give 100% when your task does not make sense or align with your core values.

The few assign­ments where I am actu­al­ly grant­ed auton­o­my are so over­shad­owed by these mean­ing­less tasks that I can bare­ly enjoy them. Why should I be forced to spend time work­ing on some­thing I am not pas­sion­ate about?!

Motivation Through Passion

When I am pas­sion­ate about some­thing, I’m all in. I could seri­ous­ly work for 24 hours straight. But that’s only if I LOVE doing it. Finan­cial inde­pen­dence and entre­pre­neur­ship will grant me the auton­o­my to pour my efforts into pas­sion projects.

I tru­ly want to change the world and improve glob­al finan­cial lit­er­a­cy. Per­form­ing tedious, mean­ing­less tasks at my cur­rent nine-to-five job will nev­er get me there.

What Now?

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, my side hus­tles don’t gen­er­ate enough income for me to live of off, but hope­ful­ly not for long! Between my disc golf com­pa­ny, the blog, my soon-to-be-acquired real estate assets, and some oth­er entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures in the pipeline, I hope to gain cash flow inde­pen­dence in one year.

I define cash flow inde­pen­dence as the point where my entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures and side hus­tles can sup­port my month­ly expens­es. At that point, I won’t starve, I won’t be home­less, and I can have a lit­tle bit of fun. The basics will be cov­ered. Still got­ta fig­ure out this health­care thing though…

As long as I don’t screw up big time, my mul­ti­ple income streams will increase and I can slow­ly upgrade from the bare-bones lifestyle. Don’t wor­ry, I’ll still be liv­ing extreme­ly fru­gal­ly. I’m not about that lifestyle creep.

So, yeah, that’s where I’m at now. Let’s see how long this whole nine-to-five thing lasts. Maybe I’ll go rogue and quit before my one-year goal is up. Am I insane or ambi­tious? I’d love to hear your feedback!