Dear Reader, After months of putting up with my vague posts, theoretical questions, and general whining, let me give you something concrete: On January 5th, 2010 I will be moving to Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand you say? Thailand. Let me give you a little bit of background. For the last year or so my buddy Ryan has been planning his round the world trip (same guy that wrote the Quit your Job, Move to Hawaii series here). So for the last year, I have been thinking about joining him. I really hadn’t made any sort of commitment, after all I was still in my job, and he has way more money saved up than I do. If you had asked me
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51 Comments posted: November 19th, 2009
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, yesterday I had a guest post entitled “Budgeting for a Lifestyle Change” go up at Get Rich Slowly. As one of the most popular and respected personal finance blogs on the internet, I am honored to have had the chance to write for JD, and am overwhelmed with the response I have received. So if you have come over from GRS, thank you, and welcome! Have I been Successful? In that post, there were a lot of positive comments, and unsurprisingly, there were some criticisms as well. The most interesting of which seemed to revolve around whether or not my story constituted a “success” or not. There were some people who
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25 Comments posted: November 16th, 2009
In the spirit of writing about some different things this week, I decided to go REALLY different today. Remember back in high school when you actually had to explore various different types of writing? Creative writing, business writing, resumes, and of course, poetry. Well it has probably been a good five years since I have even thought of the word Haiku, but I have always found them to be very intriguing in their simplicity. You can say a lot in 17 syllables. For the past week or so I have been writing random poems as they have come into my head, and today is the day I am going to share them with you. I would definitely appreciate some feedback
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13 Comments posted: November 12th, 2009
For the past two weeks I’ve been living the dream. No longer have I needed to be anywhere at any specific time. I can work on my own schedule, and get a run in whenever I feel like it. To be honest, it has been great, and I have been more productive than ever. Well that was last week. This week has been a different story. The reality of life has set in a little bit, and all of those things that I just expected to work out, have become more problematic than anticipated. I had planned on collecting unemployment for a while I looked for other ways to pay the bills. Well the review process has turned out to
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27 Comments posted: November 5th, 2009
photo by John and Keturah This guest post was written by Gen-Y Lifestyle Designer Greg Rollett. He teaches young people how to turn their visions into a business with the Rock Star Business Series. You can also chat with Greg on Twitter. I love talking to my peers these days. Young people are having the best of both worlds right now and many of them have no idea. They are faced with a really bad economy and a shady work pool, yet have more skills, know how and ambition than Tommy Callahan pushing brake pads in the heat of the moment. Just this weekend I was enjoying an amazing Sunday afternoon on a lake outside of New Smyrna Beach. Amidst the tree jumping,
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10 Comments posted: November 2nd, 2009
First thing is first. I have to thank each and everyone of you who made last Thursday the biggest single day for traffic in the history of Location180. With over 40 comments and hundreds of page views for “My Last Day” I am absolutely humbled and amazed at the amount of positive feedback I have received. In a time that is as uncertain as this is for me, to have such a strong support system is the best thing I could ask for. Now with that being said, it is a week later and I am still here. I am not dead, I have not been swallowed up in a black hole of self pity, I am here and as motivated
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15 Comments posted: October 26th, 2009
Well, it happened. Tuesday was the last day at my job. This has honestly been one of the most overwhelming experiences I have gone through in my life. For the last 24 hours I haven’t been sure how to feel. However, I think at the moment the majority of me is feeling a sense of guilt and relief. While I don’t think my job was perfect for me, it wasn’t terrible. I worked with good people that I think extremely highly of, however in the end, we just didn’t quite see eye to eye on how my employment would evolve there. I purposefully won’t go into many details, but the gist of the story is that I submitted a proposal
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85 Comments posted: October 22nd, 2009
A lot has changed over the last couple of months, and I am finding myself adopting a very frugal lifestyle. Now, I have never been the best when it comes to saving money. I usually attend at least a couple happy hours each week, buy something if I want it, and while I always put away a portion of my paycheck in to savings, it probably isn’t as much as it should be. This all began back in March when I started thinking more seriously about traveling; oh, and I got a 20% pay cut. Yeah, that will wake you up from your rogue spending habits! Since then, I have been extra conscious about the things I spend money on. Purchasing my
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20 Comments posted: October 19th, 2009
Wow, this has been a long week. It is quarterly report time at my job, and as usually happens every three months, I am swamped. With that being said, it is amazing this post made it out on time (this is an assumption, it is 5:30 on Wednesday and I am still not sure if I will be able to finish it tonight). So, if you are reading this on Thursday morning, feel free to congratulate me, as I wasn’t sure if this one was going to meet the deadline! UPDATE: It is now Sunday afternoon, and I am still putting the final touches on The Bucket List 2.0 and this post. So much for Thursday morning, congratulations are definitely
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20 Comments posted: October 12th, 2009
I did it. After 8 years of holding out, and not giving into the masses, I bought an iPod. You might be wondering why it took me so long to join the legions of cool people out there globe trotting with their white headphones. Or perhaps why I was even against it in the first place. After so many years, I am not even sure I am able to answer that question. However, I think it started out with my hatred for iTunes. I have never been so against something that I have no experience with, in all my life. I was perfectly happy using winamp for all of my music organizational needs. I didn’t need an Apple program to come in
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19 Comments posted: October 1st, 2009
What Defines Success?
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, yesterday I had a guest post entitled “Budgeting for a Lifestyle Change” go up at Get Rich Slowly. As one of the most popular and respected personal finance blogs on the internet, I am honored to have had the chance to write for JD, and am overwhelmed with the response I have received. So if you have come over from GRS, thank you, and welcome! Have I been Successful? In that post, there were a lot of positive comments, and unsurprisingly, there were some criticisms as well. The most interesting of which seemed to revolve around whether or not my story constituted a “success” or not. There were some people who
Continue Reading > 25 Comments posted: November 16th, 2009