I updated the title to this article a couple of days after posting it. On April 29 I basically Barista Fi/Re’d. Here are some observations about that! Before I dig in, I also wanted to share an older Jason Fieber article, I meant to add that in a while ago and it is appropriate here;
Lets get back to it: Hello summer! I live for summer. If I could have a nice 25 degree day, every day, for 6 months… with sunshine, the occasional rain and a breeze I would be as happy as a clam. What about you? 
Unfortunately we only get about 6 weeks of good summer here so I am taking advantage of it the best that I can.
April 29th was the last day of operations for the commercial cleaning services company that I owned and operated for the past ten years, I wrote about that here. We managed to sell off the remaining janitorial equipment bits and bobs which got picked up that evening and at about 23:00 on Monday evening, April 29th having said goodbye to our staff I walked out of our last contract a free woman. It was really hard not too smile too much, most of the staff were upset with the situation, none of them lost their jobs, but they were NOT happy to move to a new company. I however, was happy to finally be free.
The first week felt a little weird after that Monday. I still felt that pressure in the back of my head of needing to make sure the payroll was done, and taxes paid. The last payroll was sent out May 3rd and my official last company pay rolled in towards the end of May. All that is left now is the filing of ZERO returns with CRA and a final tax return at the end of the year. Some money was left in the company which I will withdraw in the 2020 tax year + the company has not been dissolved, I plan to re-purpose it next year depending on how this years ventures go!
Soooo, what have I been up to since then? In a post I wrote on my FI/RE number on April 9th I stated:
” This is what I want. I want to work, I want to be productive, I want to spend time with my family and friends and PEOPLE, I want to garden and plant things and grow food, I want to volunteer, I want to spend more time on cycling and next winter on snowboarding, I want to read more, I want to read so much more and infuse my brain with STUFF. I also want to write. I can’t do all of those things if I continue to drown myself in workaholic-ism. “
So those are the things I’ve focused on. Me and Tom planted close to 300 trees on our property through April and May. I added 4 flower beds with peonies, dahlias, lilies, liatris, hostas and lupines and planted 3 hydrangea bushes. We also moved lilies from the old family farm to our property, and started a garden patch thats about 24×6.
I have about 25 pepper and tomato plants of different varieties growing, along with lettuce, beans (green & pembroke), carrots, radish, kale, beets, pumpkin, spinach and squash. It sounds like a lot, hopefully we will be able to eat SOME after we manage to keep the bugs off it all. :p
So that is all NEW, in previous years I never did find the time to properly landscape and have a veggie garden and maintaining it and keeping the weeds out has been relatively easy and enjoyable.
Secondly, reading! I have been able to keep up on the blog/Twitter a bit more than I have in the past couple of years, and I’ve spent a ton more time reading books as well. I recently upgraded my Kindle to the latest paperwhite. SO AWESOME! I set a goodreads reading challenge of 50 books for 2019, I’m a little behind at 16 books finished but I anticipate being able to catch up a little as the year started out busier than I am now.
Staying active has been a goal for a couple of years and I have definitely been getting fitter overall as time passes. Cycling has fallen a bit to the wayside in the past few weeks but overall I am staying active and recently purchased a Garmin Vivoactive 3: linky. in rose gold, I wanted something girlier and prettier on my wrist but still functional to track activities + HR. My resting heart rate has been on a downward trend, the past couple of years my RHR has averaged at about 60-61, which is fine, my 4 week average then dropped to 56 and is now at 54. I know these devices aren’t 100% but going by the averages gives a pretty good indicator I am calmer now and stress kills… thus, moving in the right direction! I also feel at peace more than I have in YEARS, YEARS! I plan to start 1 of the Garmin running training plans soon, I seem to annually pick up the desire to do a 5k training plan and have gotten to a 10k plan a couple of times over the past few years, so I’ll be starting that again soon. Wouldn’t help to trim some of that jiggle down again either. :p
I am also still working, although A LOT less… I’m more on a “normal person schedule” than I have been in a long long time! Part-time hours really suit me just fine, I feel like I have time to breathe and enjoy things without obsessing about work all the time but still stay productive doing jobs I do enjoy while continuing to invest! Initially in the few weeks AFTER April 29th my family and friends did ask me what I did all day, I ended up kind of having to make up a proper response to stop folks from flatout imposing on our time whenever they wished: explaining you only work part-time, or in Toms case, have actually retired and now do what you want… isn’t really an acceptable answer to anyone around here, nor do we wish to attract attention to our (humble enough) means.
We both work on our sidehustle business from home, so we now state he is a programmer and works from home and I work along with him. Which is the truth, people don’t need to know the full details or that its not exactly a job-job or full-time. Our new neighbours asked what we “do” and this seemed an acceptable answer, it also stops people from assuming we are free all the time. I still work as a property manager for my parents and sisters properties, mostly through AIRBNB seasonally in the summer which is fun, I enjoy it.. minus the whiny BabyBoomer Americans that bitch about dumb things.
All in all, between AIRBNB, our sidehustle and investing and interest income, I earn beyond what I need so I’ve been able to continue to save a bit every month the past few months. And that about sums up what happens when you quit your job to work part-time instead.. it’s a little bit like going back in time to when you had a part-time job in highschool, minus the highschool. 
I’ll detail a little more on the financial front in my upcoming second quarter financial update! Stay tuned!
