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Hi, I'm Kevin and I'm an attorney, sharing economy expert, and the blogger behind Financial Panther. I paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer. I started this blog to share all I know about personal finance, travel hacking, and making more money by side hustling. Click here to learn more about me.
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make your job fit around your life

Make Your Job Fit Around Your Life

Last Updated on September 4, 2019September 4, 2019 8 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is how quitting my job has really changed the way I think about work, and specifically, how I think about the way work fits in with my life.

Take my current schedule as an example. Last week, my wife and I went on a week-long trip to Alaska (naturally, using credit card points to cover our flights and hotels). Over Labor Day weekend, I attended CampFI, where I gave a presentation to a group of 50 attendees about how to create your own version of financial independence. And this coming week, I’ll be out in DC attending FinCon, connecting with all of my fellow money nerds and content creators. 

make your job fit around your life
My view of the Harding Icefield in Kenai Fjords National Park.

That’s two weeks on the road, which is something that I never could have done back when I was working my regular day job. Back then, if I wanted to be out of the office that long, I’d have to first talk to my boss to get permission. Then I’d have to use my precious vacation time. And since I only had two weeks of vacation per year, using my vacation time now meant that I would have to sacrifice elsewhere in the year. I wouldn’t have any vacation time left for big holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years, for example. 

Looking at it from the outside, it occurs to me that my job pretty much controlled my life. Everything I wanted to do had to fit around the parameters my job created for me. If I wanted to run errands or go home for a bit or do whatever, I couldn’t. My life was secondary to my job.

The more I think about it, the crazier that fact seems to me. If anything, it seems like it should be the other way around. Instead of your life fitting around your job, your job should fit around your life.

Most People – Your Life Fits Around Your Job

It’s interesting when you think about how we spend our days. We all get 24 hours in our day that’s basically broken down into three chunks: 

  • 8 sleeping;
  • 8 hours working; and
  • 8 hours doing your own thing.

Those hours are not created equally. We spend 8 hours sleeping because that’s when we’re tired and have to sleep. The 8 hours we get to use for our own thing are usually given to us early in the morning when we’re tired from just waking up, or later in the evening when we’re tired after a long day. 

Interestingly enough, the best and most useful hours of our day – those 8 hours during the middle of the day when we’re generally the most energized and productive – are given away to our employers. They get the best, most awake, and most productive hours of our day. We get what’s leftover.

This is the way most of us live. Our lives – those precious bits of time we get for ourselves – have to fit around our job. It’s our jobs that decide where we go each day and what we can do each day. And if we want to deviate from that at all, it’s our jobs that decide if that’s possible.

The Goal – Create A Job That Fits Around Your Life 

Since I quit my job and went on this entrepreneurial route, things really seem to be different. I don’t have to ask anyone for permission to do anything and I get to pick how I want to use the 24 hours of my day. It’s the reason I’m able to be on the road for 2 weeks and both enjoy myself and get things done.

There are obvious trade-offs of course. I have nothing guaranteed (although, it’s fair to ask if anything in life is guaranteed). I also don’t have as clear a delineation between work and non-work time – when you’re doing your own thing, work and life inevitably start to meld together.  

But the things I do now to earn a living – writing this blog, doing my gig stuff, and figuring out whatever other schemes I need to get by – give me back control of my life. I still have to work and I still have a job. But I have a lot more flexibility in how I use my time. Instead of fitting my life around my job, it feels like it’s going the other way now, where my job fits around my life.

I think this desire for control and flexibility is why I’ve always liked school. College and law school gave me a lot of time and flexibility during my day and made me feel in control of my life. I had a few hours of classes, but the majority of the time was for me to use.

Financial Independence Is About Feeling In Control 

The point of financial independence isn’t about accumulating money. It’s about getting back control of our lives. 

Our jobs tend to take away that control, which is why a lot of us come to the conclusion that the best thing we can do is get rid of the job. But creating a job that gives you back control of your life, where the job fits around your life, can do the same thing. 

I’m not financially independent – in fact, I’m far from it. But I do a lot of the things that financially independent people do. I control my time. No one tells me how to use it. And perhaps most importantly, I’m happier than I was when I didn’t feel in control.

Moving to self-employment and hustling with my own wits has given me back that feeling of control that I didn’t have before. And even though I’m not financially independent, I sure seem to act like I am.

I still work for a living. But the work I do to earn a living – my job, if you will – seems to fit around my life. I get to choose when and where I work. And I don’t have to ask permission from anyone to do whatever it is I want or need to do.

My job fits around my life, not the other way around.

financial panther

Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the sharing economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.

Kevin is passionate about earning money using the sharing economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.

Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:

  • Personal Capital. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps Kevin uses to track his financial accounts.
  • SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $50 welcome bonus if you open an account and fund it with at least $500.
  • M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $10 for opening an account.
  • Dobot. This is a great microsaving app that monitors the cash flow in your bank account and saves away small amounts for you each week. It's free and you'll get $5 when you use it.

Feel free to send Kevin a message here.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    September 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm

    This is exactly how I feel. My goal is to be ableto scschedule my work around my life and not the other way around. Thanks for the post!

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      September 7, 2019 at 8:42 am

      Glad you liked the post!

      Reply
  2. 2018Reader says

    September 4, 2019 at 4:42 pm

    Hello Kevin,
    I really appreciate your blog. Hopefully I will be joining you in a similar lifestyle sooner rather than later. You should have $50 income soon as I have just joined SoFi.

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      September 7, 2019 at 8:42 am

      Sweet! Thanks for the support!

      Reply
  3. Dan says

    September 5, 2019 at 3:56 pm

    I lived a very similar lifestyle to your current situation although it was not by choice. I was laid off from work. I had a difficult time getting full-time employment so I didn’t independent consulting in my professional field. This was 15 years ago so the gig economy didn’t exist or I wasn’t aware of it.

    “I have nothing guaranteed (although, it’s fair to ask if anything in life is guaranteed). ” This is the primary reason I went back to work. My consulting work produced an uneven stream of monthly income. Some months I didn’t get any work. Other months, I had so much work I had to turn away clients. Eventually, the stress of having to move money around to pay for day-to-day expenses was not worth the aggravation. I sought out and eventually found full-time employment. However, from the start my goal was to find full time employment. Independent consulting was a stopgap measure. A few months were very lucrative which made me briefly consider pursuing it but after a few dry months, I realized the volatile nature of the compensation was not something I could stomach long-term.

    Regarding your quote, working for a large company better guarantees a steady paycheck that being on your own.

    It is unclear to me what your end goal is w.r.t. to your current situation. You state you are not FI so it implies this current work situation is temporary. How do you know when to exit it? It seems atypically unplanned for you as you strike me as someone who plans ahead.

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      September 7, 2019 at 8:44 am

      My thought is that this is something that will ultimately be my business that continues to generate me revenue. As I keep doing it more and as the internet continues to grow and get larger and my audience hopefully continues to grow and get larger, my income would likely continue to increase. Obviously can’t guarantee anything, but that’s the goal.

      Reply
  4. Kim @ The Frugal Engineers says

    September 13, 2019 at 11:45 am

    This is the biggest perk of freelancing for me. Being able to turn off the work tap during summer breaks and spend time with my kid is a HUGE benefit. Well worth the “risk” of giving up the benefits of a day job.

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      September 16, 2019 at 3:18 pm

      Amen! Work fits around you – not the other way around!

      Reply

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