How To Transition From Working Full-Time To Part-Time

Are you considering transitioning from full-time work to part-time work? I successfully made this transition in 2018 and am happy to share how I did it. It's important to note that what worked for me may not work for everyone, but it could provide some helpful ideas for starting your own transition to part-time work or even flexible work hours.

In 2018, I walked away from it all and decided to live the laptop lifestyle and work only part-time. I also only wanted to work when I wanted to.

When I look back on the day that I made that decision and decided to act on it. I can say, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made when making life decisions.

For me to do this walk. I put together an action plan and implemented several things within my life before taking this walk to happiness. This plan of action included the following:

• Get my finances and spending under control

• Created a budget and stuck to it

• Downsized my lifestyle and spending habits

• Re-evaluated my wants and needs in life

• Started living within my means

• Eliminated all debt

• Changed my mindset to a simpler and minimalistic lifestyle mindset

• Put in a lot of work and planning a year before to make this a reality

• Removed the word greed from my vocabulary and mindset

• And finally, I created a side hustle that would generate a passive income that I could take with me anywhere in the world

For me to make this transition, especially when it comes to finances. I had to make massive changes in how I was living my life. Back then, I was making low six figures for an income. This was also an above-average wage for the area I lived in and my lifestyle (which matched my income) showed it. When I left the office for the last time and closed the door, It was one of the best feelings I had ever had. Almost five years later, I still have no regrets and consider this one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I am living the life and lifestyle that I always wanted to live and also living life on my terms.

The things I implemented I will admit, are not for everyone nor will they work for everyone, but they worked for me. I took the risk and walked away from it all. I now reap the benefits of a lifestyle I enjoy, which is a slower-paced and more relaxing lifestyle.

How Did I Get My Finances Under Control To Transition To Working Part-Time

I adopted a very strict approach to tracking my finances and eliminated all duplicate expenditures and wasteful spending. I tracked every penny coming into the household and how it was also spent. This is one of the tools I created to track my spending. HERE

How Did I Create My Budget

I am a numbers person. After I was able to get a good understanding of my finances. I figured out how much money I needed to live for a year. Once I had that number, I worked it backwards, breaking down the amount per month and then per week. Once I created my budget, it took a lot of discipline to stick to it, as you have to, and make no exceptions.

How Did I Downsize My lifestyle and spending habits

This involved a lifestyle mindset change. I didn’t see the need to live in a home where I only used 15% of the living space, so I downsized my living space to something more practical and affordable. Doing this eliminated the mortgage payment and drastically reduced my utility, property taxes, and maintenance costs.

Downsizing also increased my available cash flow tremendously. I also stopped going to restaurants numerous times a week, and I gave myself a weekly spending allowance. If I ran out of money at the beginning of the week and wanted something, guess what? I didn't make the purchase, no matter how good of a deal it might have been at that point in time.

Re-evaluated My wants and needs in life

I wanted a nice big house, but I didn’t need it when something more practical would suit my needs. I wanted a nice sports car, but I didn’t need it. The sports car was not practical for me anymore to what I needed from a vehicle.

This was the mindset I adopted when I started to re-evaluate my life and the direction I WANTED my life to go in. I made all these decisions because I WANTED freedom in my life. I started basing my life decisions while keeping that end goal in mind.

I started living within My means.

I developed the mindset that if I didn’t have the cash available at the time. I didn’t make the purchase unless it was an emergency. I removed all the impulse spending.

How I Eliminated All My Debt

If I was making payments on something, I eliminated it. I didn't care if it was credit cards, vehicles, personal loans, or the mortgage. I made it a condition that I had to be debt-free to perform my walk to freedom.

I sat down and evaluated all of my debts and then prioritized them when it came to paying them off. I used the approach where I would pay off the smallest debt first and work up to the biggest being my mortgage. Most financial planners won't recommend this approach and will recommend paying off the debt with the highest interest rate first. I adopted my approach as I planned on selling my home and then purchasing something more practical to my needs, as I was planning on selling my home. When my home sold, three months after I started this journey, I became 100% debt-free. Since then I haven't borrowed a single penny and I have no plans to either. I don't even have a credit card anymore simply because my bank card can be used like a Visa, and the limit is whatever I have in that account at the time.

How I Changed My Mindset To be More Minimalistic

Myself, I previously had the mindset that — He who dies with the most wins. I now have the mindset that — He who dies with the best memories truly is the winner in this game called life.

When it came time to purchase something. I started asking myself, is this a want or a need? I then made the decision to purchase or not depending on how I answered that question. I will be honest. There were times when I did purchase some wants after all. No matter what you do, you still need to live life and have some enjoyment, and I did.

How I Prepared Myself To Work Only Part-Time

When it came to my work schedule leading up to my transition to working only part-time. I still put in the same amount of working hours per week 50–60 hours However, I stopped working overtime at work and only put in a 40-hour work week. I started investing the extra hours that I now had into investigating various side hustles. I then took this newfound knowledge and started building an income stream that I could take with me no matter where I was in the world. As with any business. I knew it would take a bit of time to a point where I could live off of the income it generated.

I Removed The Word Greed From My Vocabulary

I think this is self-explanatory. It also changed my outlook on life and how I now saw the Great American Dream.

I created a side hustle that would generate a passive income.

I spent the time and researched a side hustle that would work for me. My side hustle of choice at the time was Amazon KDP. I have since expanded on this to include this website. However, I now earn a fraction of what I used to earn previously or what others might make doing the same thing. The lifestyle I now lead doesn’t require a huge income stream anymore, and that is the biggest reason why I was able to successfully transition from working full-time to part-time to now only working when I want to.

This is the blueprint that I created to be able to enter into semi-retirement and to create financial freedom for myself. A big thing that I did discover was this — You don’t need a lot of money in the bank to have financial freedom. You just need to live within your means.

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