How we created margin to do more outdoors
One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is, “How?” How do we have the time to travel? How can we afford to camp 100+ nights per year? How did I manage to escape the “security” of full-time employment? How do we have the margin to do more outdoors – to find ourselves outside?
To be completely honest, it’s not something I love talking about. While many people are simply curious and want to learn, others become defensive and resentful. And while it’s probably not the most mature approach, I’d rather just avoid the topic altogether.
I get it. When we discuss subjects we’re emotionally invested in—nutrition, spirituality, or politics—encountering someone who thinks differently can feel like an attack. And I say this without judgment. Our household has heated debates on the topic of nutrition regularly.
Taking all of this into consideration, I went back and forth for more than a month on whether or not to share this story in an upcoming newsletter. Then, as I started outlining what I wanted to write, I decided this message was important enough to share publicly. Because no matter where you are on your own journey, there are universal lessons that can help you create a more authentic and meaningful life.
How we created margin to do more outdoors
I like to start this story in 2010. The previous fall, I had accepted a promotion in my former corporate career that had me traveling for work about 80 percent of the time. With that much travel time, it didn’t take long before I was hooked on podcasts and audiobooks that I downloaded to my old iPod. During the first six months of that year, I wholeheartedly embraced three new virtual mentors who made me question everything I thought I knew.
The first was Seth Godin. His book Linchpin made our household rethink what it means to work and make an impact. At the time, his words--“It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map.”--went against most of what we’d ever been told. But just 14 years later, it’s not uncommon to hear similar ideas from both me and my husband, Jer.
If you’ve been following my story for a while or know me personally, it should be no surprise that I love the topic of personal finance. Although I knew at a very early age that I wanted to live a very different lifestyle from the one I grew up in, I lacked a good roadmap. So, I adopted most of our cultural beliefs about money. You go to college, take out student loans, get a good job, take out a car loan to get to your said job, buy a starter house, get a mortgage, upgrade said house, upgrade your mortgage, etc., etc. I remember thinking that what we could “afford” was what we could afford to make payments on.
Although I lacked a good roadmap, I was still good with money. I saved a lot and had very little debt. Then one Christmas, one of Jer’s uncles gifted the family this book by Dave Ramsey. Despite ignoring every personal finance book I tried to get him to read, something about this one pulled him in. Perhaps it was his uncle’s testimony about how it changed his life. Soon, I had Jer telling me, “You have to read this book. We’re doing a lot of things right, but it could be even better."
Remember what I said earlier about being emotionally invested? I’d read my own personal finance books and thought I knew what I was doing. But Jer was relentless, so after months of nagging, I broke down and listened to the audio version of this book.
The Dave Ramsey rabbit hole led me to his good friend Dan Miller and his book 48 Days to the Work You Love. Once again, everything I thought I knew was turned inside out. For most of my life, I believed that success was defined by income and job title. But my new friend, Dan, was telling me that a life well-lived was one in which you made deposits into all the buckets, not just your job title and bank account. He made me wonder, if you’re successful in your career but your health and family life are a disaster, are you really a success?
This is likely one of the most impactful lessons I’ve learned on my journey thus far. We have since prioritized making deposits in all the buckets—health, spirituality, personal growth, relationships, our marriage, meaningful work, and finances. We live a life of intention, based on what we value, and pay little mind to what society tells us it means to win.
Building the foundation for our life outdoors
Armed with these radical new ideas about what might be possible, we began making small changes. Since it felt the most exciting and attainable, we started with our finances. We began tracking our expenses, which led us to create a budget. That inspired us to pay off the aforementioned starter home—which I lovingly refer to as our Rich Dad house and Jer refers to as a box where we store our outdoor gear. When we ran the numbers, we were certain we could pay off the box in five years. But once we started, we were quickly all in, and 32 months later, we were completely debt-free.
Over those 32 months, other things began to change too. Since we were trying to spend as little money as possible, we looked for free things to do and spent a lot of time hiking and biking. Not wanting to spend $1000 every time we went up north for a long weekend, we quickly fell in love with camping. We quit getting takeout and delivery and started growing much of our own food and cooking everything at home—much of it from scratch. We haven’t ordered takeout to this day. I doubt I need to tell you how these changes affected our health.
As I write this, it’s been 10 years and five days since we walked into our credit union and paid off our mortgage. As we approached our 10th debt-free anniversary, we enjoyed many discussions about how our lives have changed since then.
Eight months after saying farewell to debt, I was able to leave my corporate career and a company that was named “Worst Company in America to Work For” several years in a row. Today, I get paid to write and take photos of my outdoor adventures. Jer worked his way into a position that makes the most of his natural skills and abilities. Not only is he thriving, but he has a job that will be very difficult to leave when retirement age eventually rolls around. I’m the healthiest and most fit that I’ve ever been. And of course, we have a lot of margin to do more outdoors—and find ourselves outside.
Although we made a lot of sacrifices, we both look back on this time as one of the best periods of our lives together. One in which we worked as a team on a shared goal. A period when we made the most of everything we already had. And explored lots of new and exciting adventures.
It goes without saying, of course, that our lives are far from perfect. As long as we get to experience our time on this earth, we’ll be learning, growing, and falling down—just like everyone else. But what we do have is the freedom to live with intention. And the freedom to prioritize our values and lifestyle over the cultural definition of “success.”
What does this mean for you?
Like most of the stories I share, there’s no cookie-cutter answer. I wish I could offer you a formula that promises that if you do this, this, and this, you’ll receive more love, happiness, and abundance than you’d know what to do with. But that’s not how this works. So, I’ll leave you with some questions to ponder.
What do you value? What are the most important aspects of your life?
How do you want to live your days? What does the perfect day, week, or month look like to you?
How well does the life you’re living today align with the answers you just gave?
What would you be willing to sacrifice to create better alignment?
What one small change will you commit to today that your future self will thank you for?
I get that things are pretty wild right now. The cost of essentials has skyrocketed, and everything feels a bit uncertain. But I also know that you are stronger and more capable than you know. Creating a more meaningful life is never easy, but that’s what makes it rewarding. And when you fall down or question your sanity, remember that it’s never too late to begin again.