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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

What’s Next

By 44 Comments

After months of con­fu­sion, inner tur­moil, and lots of angst.… this exper­i­ment has come to an end.

My boyfriend and I broke up last week.

I am incred­i­bly sad we could­n’t make it work. He is a fan­tas­tic per­son — just not fan­tas­tic for me as a roman­tic part­ner. There are def­i­nite­ly things we could have done bet­ter, and I’m tak­ing those things away as lessons to not repeat in the future.

I tru­ly wish him the very best in life and all the hap­pi­ness in the world.

It’s weird — in the past, my ex-boyfriends have all been douch­es that have done ter­ri­ble things to me (like that one guy that broke up with me over Snapchat…) so I had that right­eous anger and indig­na­tion to fall back on to get me through the breakup. I don’t have that this time because it was no one’s fault. I just feel sad.

I am incred­i­bly GLAD we took the leap and tried to make it work. I learned a ton about myself, what I need from a part­ner, and what a ful­fill­ing life looks like to me. Even though the out­come isn’t what I want­ed, I’m not plagued by the “what if”. I know what hap­pened and I’m glad we tried.

shit
Found this at the cor­ner cof­fee shop this weekend

What’s Next

After it became clear to me we weren’t going to work out, I start­ed to make plans. As my free­lanc­ing efforts ‘suc­ceed­ed’ in part thanks to his gen­eros­i­ty with keep­ing my expens­es low, I’m try­ing to fig­ure out what I want to do with my time. I get to decide where I live, what career I want, and what lev­el of work I apply to. Not many peo­ple have that freedom.

I have been apply­ing to go back to cor­po­rate jobs. I do not want to hear any “I told you so’s” because while the vast major­i­ty of you are kind and won­der­ful peo­ple, there are a few trolls that have popped up since I start­ed free­lanc­ing. I have a job free­lanc­ing right now — the only prob­lem is I can’t live off the wage it produces.

I decid­ed since I’ve been work­ing my butt off late­ly, I might as well go back to the cor­po­rate world and make lots of mon­ey instead of a few bucks here and there. I am look­ing at get­ting back into my for­mer career of IT Exec­u­tive Sup­port, so if any­one has an “in” to that kind of job shoot me an email!

In the mean­time, I can’t stay here in Min­neapo­lis in his house. It’s too painful for both of us and delay­ing the heal­ing work we both need to do. If it were any oth­er time of year, I’d head down south to Dal­las to stay with friends that have offered a room for Mew and me. How­ev­er, the hol­i­days are rapid­ly approach­ing. Since I’d have to go home for the hol­i­days, I might as well just stay there.

I am incred­i­bly grate­ful I have that sup­port sys­tem to fall back on. I took this chance know­ing they’d be there if things fell apart. I can’t say I would’ve done this otherwise.

The Stuff

I’ve talked in the past about hav­ing a lot of stuff. Even though I haven’t bought much in the last few years, and got­ten rid of a TON of stuff, I still have quite a few pos­ses­sions that need to be moved out of his house. My par­en­t’s house does­n’t have room for it, so I can’t just take it with me to their house. I looked into get­ting a POD, but I’m not sure I can afford $200 a month with my vari­able income. I thought about get­ting a stor­age unit here in Min­neapo­lis, but prices are high­er thanks to the large met­ro­pol­i­tan area and I did­n’t want to have to come back in the win­ter to get my stuff once I fig­ure out where I’m going.

So, I’m tak­ing the stuff with me. I thought about get­ting a stor­age unit close to my par­en­t’s house, but then I remem­bered I have a friend with a huge house and a giant emp­ty attic. She has gra­cious­ly offered the use of her attic to store my belong­ings as long as I need. I will be giv­ing her some mon­ey month­ly for it because I can afford a lit­tle and she needs the mon­ey. Hope­ful­ly, I won’t need to store it there for too long!

Once I fig­ure out where I’m going, I can plan on how to move it to the new loca­tion, but I’m not going to wor­ry about that now.

I picked up about 40 box­es from a lady on Craigslist for free, so I’ve got that aspect cov­ered. They smell like old lady flow­ery per­fume and sad­ness, but they cost me nada so I’m grate­ful. My stuff can always air out later.

img 20181026 1416485059262785472100041 e1540828990343

The Future

My plan is to apply for full-time jobs while also work­ing on free­lance assign­ments. So far, I’ve had good luck with con­tent man­age­ment gigs but it’s been a chal­lenge to make those hap­pen while deal­ing with the fall­out of my per­son­al life falling apart. That should get eas­i­er with time.

If 2019 rolls around and no one has hired me, I plan to explore liv­ing in the South. I have the afore­men­tioned friends in Dal­las and options in Geor­gia. After I get hired, I’ll move there. I’m total­ly open to mov­ing pret­ty much any­where in the world. Some places sound more fun than oth­ers, but for the short-term, I just want to get back into the full-time work­ing world. I plan to keep as many of the free­lanc­ing gigs as I can while work­ing full-time.

I feel like now is an excel­lent time to put my nose to the grind­stone and do some work. Who knows, maybe my free­lanc­ing efforts will flour­ish when there isn’t so much pres­sure to make mon­ey off of them.

Final Thoughts

As we are both involved in this per­son­al finance blog­ging com­mu­ni­ty, I don’t want any­one to feel like they have to take sides. We will remain friends through the years — just not as good of friends as we once were.

My heart is hurt­ing, but ulti­mate­ly I feel this is the right move for both of us.

Wish me luck on the new adven­ture I get to take on!

As always, thanks for read­ing! What’s your favorite awful chick flick movie? I’m run­ning out of options 🙂 

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Just because some­one isn’t right for you doesn’t mean they have to be a bad per­son. And it’s absolute­ly hard­er when they aren’t a total jerk, but it’s even more impor­tant to move on in that case in my opin­ion, because it can be a lot hard­er to do so. Good luck on this next step — and absolute­ly no I told you so’s here — tak­ing a big leap with what if’s are absolute­ly the right choice much of the time. What the heck is the point of purs­ing FI if you don’t allow your­self to take the chances it affords?
    Angela @ Tread Light­ly Retire Ear­ly recent­ly post­ed…Embrac­ing The Sim­plic­i­ty Of Zero Waste: Guest Post From Kiwi And KeweenawMy Profile

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  3. Oh, Gwen, I’m sor­ry to hear this hap­pened. I know it’s for the best for every­one, and I’m sure there’s a lot of heartache right now. I hope the two of you find heal­ing in your own time. 

    I’m new to free­lanc­ing full-time myself (3 weeks in!), but I’d be more than hap­py to toss back some ideas to help you make it a real­i­ty con­tin­u­ing full time, if that’s what would make you hap­py. <3 Just DM me on Twit­ter if you want to chat!

    Much love to you!

    P.S. If you do find your way to Dal­las, let me know!
    Mrs. Picky Pinch­er recent­ly post­ed…What A Fru­gal Week­end! Octo­ber 28My Profile

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  5. Send­ing some vir­tu­al hugs your way! You got this Gwen and I am sure you will fig­ure things out for the best for your next steps. I’m very glad you have a great sup­port sys­tem to help nav­i­gate through these changes. I admire that you both appear to be respect­ful of each oth­er despite things not work­ing out and that you seem to wish the best to each oth­er. The world needs more of this.
    I also admire that you share your expe­ri­ences, of try­ing dif­fer­ent things and also of read­just­ing your plans. Keep on being true to your­self and ignore the trolls! Good luck with the free­lanc­ing as well as the job search and new adventures.
    Ms. Mod recent­ly post­ed…Results Octo­ber 2018 : Mis­sion Reduce our Gro­cery SpendingMy Profile

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  6. Thanks for your open and hon­est account. Heart­break sucks, espe­cial­ly when you have already invest­ed so much in each oth­er. It’s great that you are look­ing at how wide the doors are for you now. Let me know if you start look­ing to live on the West Coast! All the best.

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  7. So sor­ry to hear this. I do have to add though that since you have a blog and pod­cast, this opens you up to many dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that are remote work! That’s how I got into my cur­rent posi­tion of remote dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strate­gist for agency that works with IT com­pa­nies. 😉 Just an idea! You just have to posi­tion it well.

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  8. Sor­ry to hear this, and best wish­es on your next chap­ter! I’d admire your thought­ful­ness and how you keep plug­ging along even in the mind­set of hard times. I know that per­se­ver­ance will help you get far in life!

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  12. Hang in there. You took a risk and have learned so much about yourself.
    I live in Dal­las and love it. The DFW area is so big, each cor­ner with its own per­son­al­i­ty. Hit me up if you do decide to end up here or are con­sid­er­ing the area. Strong job market.
    Savvy­Fi­nan­cial­Lati­na recent­ly post­ed…2 Weeks NoticeMy Profile

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  13. Best of luck in your next adven­ture and con­grats for the chance you took. If you decide to head to DFW, reach out and drop into our Choose­FI Group. Best market/economy in the coun­try, wish I had found this place in my 20s.

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  18. Sor­ry to hear this Gwen! I know you’ll be great and kill it. Being young is the time to take risks! There will be love around the corner!

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  19. Oh man. So sor­ry you’ve hit some obsta­cles, but I’m glad to hear you have a sup­port sys­tem to help until your next adven­tures. Cool you’re con­sid­er­ing Geor­gia. My hus­band is in IT in Alpharet­ta, GA. He thinks I’m fun­ny for being so enthu­si­as­tic about & wor­ry­ing over my favorite FIRE pod­cast­ers, but I’ll ask if he hap­pens to have any job leads. I am just a ran­dom FIRE fan, but I am root­ing for you!

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    • Hey I’ll take sup­port from wher­ev­er and who­ev­er I can get it from, I’m not picky. Thank you for wor­ry­ing about me!

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  20. You are so authen­tic and that is what makes your blog and pod­cast spe­cial. Don’t lose that. Thanks for shar­ing with us. You’re gonna come out of this okay. You’re incred­i­bly smart and tal­ent­ed and just sparky. I am root­ing for you!

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    • Thanks Clau­dia. Keepin it real over here! Life isn’t all sun­shine and ros­es for any­one and it’s not fair to only talk about the good stuff.

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    • The world is my oys­ter! I can’t wait to see what pearls I find. Thanks for the words of support!

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  22. You have my per­mis­sion to punch any­one in the face who says “I told you so.” This is just like what Joel from FI180 said. “What’s the worst that can hap­pen when you retire ear­ly? You go back and get a job. Your worst-case sce­nario is every­one else’s every­day life.”
    So you have to go back and get a job. Did you learn a boat­load of stuff? Yes. So take those lessons and apply them forward.
    I’m sor­ry your rela­tion­ship did­n’t work out, though. That super sucks.

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    • Hear that trolls? Watch out! This is only a fail­ure if I did­n’t learn any­thing from the expe­ri­ence. Who knows.… maybe I’ll end up in Colorado 🙂

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  23. Darn – I missed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet you while you lived in Min­neapo­lis! I am so impressed you are so open to new adven­tures includ­ing new loca­tions. Good luck and I can’t wait to hear about your next steps!

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  25. You saw a pos­si­ble dream life, and you took a swing at it to see if you could make it work. It was a great plan, the tim­ing and sit­u­a­tion just weren’t right. Keep swing­ing at your dreams and you’re bound to hit a home run on one of them. You only have to be right once to make it so keep swing­ing as many times as you can. One of these oppor­tu­ni­ties you cross will lead you to your dream life. You’re going to make it to where you want to go. I believe in you. Peace sister.
    Wealth Well Done recent­ly post­ed…The Three Fears Moti­vat­ing My Finan­cial PursuitsMy Profile

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  26. Gwen, I am so sad to hear about this and see you leave, but know that you and Mew are ALWAYS wel­come to stay at our place. We love you and hope to see you often. I am glad we have this com­mu­ni­ty of awe­some peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed and unite with. You rock! We need to get togeth­er soon! By the way, you inspire me! – Amanda
    Aman­da recent­ly post­ed…The Three Fears Moti­vat­ing My Finan­cial PursuitsMy Profile

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  27. Hate to hear this Gwen, but I’m glad that it seems to be as clean as pos­si­ble. Also glad you two didn’t break up over snapchat. It’s great to have such won­der­ful peo­ple around to sup­port you, and I wish you all the luck in the world with find­ing a new full-time gig. You would’ve regret­ted not tak­ing your chance. Con­grats on push­ing the bound­aries and chal­leng­ing your­self. It’s cliché, but what doesn’t kill you tru­ly does make you stronger. 

    If I ever find myself trav­el­ing through where you end up, we’ll have to have you over and you can bring mew to play with our zoo (hey that rhymed!)
    Nick True recent­ly post­ed…The Best Strat­e­gy To Con­vince Your Spouse To BudgetMy Profile

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  30. Chang­ing your mind is a virtue, and doing it pub­licly is very laud­able. There is no shame to going back to a cor­po­rate gig. They exist for a rea­son: they are pret­ty great as far as sell­ing ones labour goes. 

    There is a huge selec­tion effect where we here only about the suc­cess­ful peo­ple who become self-employed, and a hell of a lot of adverse selec­tion in the case of peo­ple who are self-employed in a busi­ness that sells cours­es on how to become self-employed. 

    Pub­licly admit­ting it didn’t work you in this instance is great work. 

    No point in get­ting caught in a sunk costs:https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tyMdPwd8x2RygcheE/sunk-cost-fallacy

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  31. I’m sor­ry about your break up, it’s always rough. You took a huge leap of faith to move to MN, and it didn’t work out so that stinks. How­ev­er, you can lit­er­al­ly do ANYTHING with your life right now. How awe­some is that? The hurt will even­tu­al­ly sub­side and you will most def­i­nite­ly land on your feet. Now is the per­fect time to dream big dreams! Yes, so what, you have to go back to the cor­po­rate world, but it’s not for­ev­er and you get to choose where you want to live. You did some­thing that most peo­ple just dream about. Keep your head up and your eyes open, you’re going to come out on top. Take care and good luck!

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  32. Gwen -
    I’m so sor­ry to hear about your rela­tion­ship. (long time lis­ten­er, first time caller)
    I can relate to both heart­break as well as the strug­gles to find your stride as an entre­pre­neur. I first took the jump about 18 months ago into the self employ­ment world, and even though it looks like I may have hit my stride, I def­i­nite­ly have wok­en up at 2:30am more times than I care to admit to some sort of ‘What have i done with my life’ kind of crisis.

    Ulti­mate­ly I think you could still have a bright future doing your own thing, but maybe it’s ok to let those build organ­i­cal­ly on the side of some oth­er fire friend­ly full­time job 🙂

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  33. One lit­tle note I adore: breakups forces you to learn A LOT about your­self. Rela­tion­ships (suc­cess­fuls, hor­ri­bles, greats, fails, big­ger fails etc.) are all über impor­tant. When I broke up with my first boyfriend I (as a teenag­er) thought it was THE END OF THE WORLD, I went BAWWWW. But thank god we did­n’t work out. I met my Mr. Hip­po and I knew he was the one with­in 30 min­utes of talk­ing to him. A per­son just knows!

    It all end­ed up OK. The world did­n’t end. In fact, things only got bet­ter. It sucked dur­ing. You’re brave Gwen and I’m proud of you!!! Things will be A‑OK!!!

    P.S. I lis­tened to this song for daysssssss after a breakup and it real­ly helped. There are two Scan­di­na­vian guys mak­ing out (the artist is gay) so just warn­ing. But it’s a beau­ti­ful song 😀 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh9_t82ifiU

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  34. I’m sor­ry for your loss. Good luck on your jour­ney. I’m already finan­cial­ly inde­pen­dent, but I chose a more con­ser­v­a­tive path. I find the mod­ern FIRE move­ment inspir­ing because it’s good for peo­ple (free­dom) and the plan­et (sus­tain­able). Thank you for shar­ing your expe­ri­ence. I look for­ward to watch­ing you grow into a fiery millennial. 🙂

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  35. Hi Gwen,

    Treat it as a learn­ing expe­ri­ence for you. I believe that you would have gained some insights from it through pos­i­tive think­ing. There is noth­ing wrong in going back to cor­po­rate world. Earn the buck and you will achieve FIRE easily.

    WTK

    Reply

  37. Hey Gwen!

    I’m a rel­a­tive­ly new read­er but want­ed to pop in here and say I appre­ci­ate your hon­esty and wish you all the best 🙂 

    When­ev­er I used to be sad about a boy, I’d watch Break­fast at Tiffany’s — spark­ly things and win­dow escapes are sure to cheer you up! 

    Also, SO ran­dom, but I had to com­ment because my grandad has a lit­tle fig­urine that’s the SAME lit­tle mopey man and the same font, only his quote is “I have a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty around here. Every time some­thing goes wrong, I’m respon­si­ble.” I did­n’t know it was a series. What a small lit­tle world 🙂
    SC | Miss­Func­tion­al Mon­ey recent­ly post­ed…APY vs. APR: How They Work, What’s the Dif­fer­ence & What They Mean For YouMy Profile

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