If someone told you that you could retire in your thirties, would you take it to heart, or would you secretly laugh in sheer disbelief? There was a time I would’ve chosen the latter. But not anymore.
Financial Independence is a term that you may have come across, perhaps thinking it only applied to people who were born wealthy, but that couldn’t be more wrong. There are many people today who are embracing the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) lifestyle at ages that are far below typical retirement age, and it isn’t because they were born into monetary wealth. It is due to very careful planning, lifestyle changes, and the understanding that it is possible to retire much earlier than expected.
Just take a moment to search online and you’ll find numerous examples, perhaps even today’s featured guests who are a great example of a couple who has achieved Financial Independence. This couple has not only retired in their thirties, but they are also traveling full-time, internationally, for much less than they ever spent when living and working from home in California.
Without further ado, I introduce you to our featured guests: Mr. & Mrs. Nomad Numbers!
Tell us about yourself: Who are you? Where are you from?
We are Mr. and Mrs. Nomad Numbers (NN) respectively 38 and 36 years old. Mr. NN is from France and Mrs. NN is from California. We both used to work in Tech in San Francisco. One year ago, we sold all of our belongings, moved out of our apartment in the city and packed 2 carryon bags eachto become nomadic indefinitely – traveling the world slowly.
Where are you right now? What do you see when you look outside?
We are currently in Porto, Portugal where we are staying for a month before we head down to Lisbon where we will stay for another 3 weeks. We typically stay around 4-6 weeks in each destination.
When we look outside, we see the streets of Porto. Our Airbnb is fairly central which is convenient but that also means there are quite a number of cars and people passing by.
What does your day to day life look like?
Our day to day varies as we change destinations and have to adjust our routine based on the environment. We always stay in Airbnb’s that are comfortable and well supplied for long-term stays because they become our homes and we love to cook. We like to roughly spend half of our time exploring the places we live in and spend the other half on what we call our “project work” – blogging, photography, learning new skills, etc.
When we explore, it tends to be more of the local scene instead of the touristy sights. We can see most of the major sights in a few days as most other tourists do. What we find really enjoyable is discovering local grocery stores, festivals, parks and unique cultural activities. We also like to take mini excursions.
For example around Porto, we visited Matosinhos which is a lovely beach town with great seafood and the Douro Valley which is a gorgeous wine country that is a UNESCO world heritage site. Places you might not get to see if you were only on a quick 1-2 week vacation.
In terms of project work, we both have our own interests. Mrs. NN is starting the second term of her nutrition course which she loves. On my side, I spend time producing content for our blog, Nomad Numbers, which shares our journey and how much we spend so we can show that traveling the world can be cheaper than staying at home.
Besides sharing our story and connecting with like minded people, I spent the last 2 months streamlining our expense tracking process by building an app and hope to share it with our community soon.
Has your life always looked that way? If not, what was your life like before?
Not at all! Just over a year ago, we were living in our apartment in San Francisco and working our 9-5 jobs in Tech which were often more like 9-9 jobs. I was working as a Program Manager and Mrs. Nomad Number worked in marketing.
We loved to travel and would usually take 2 vacations per year, which we never felt was enough.
What changed?
The turning point took place in 2017 when Mrs. NN asked me if I wanted to travel the world for a year because it was always a dream of hers. While I definitely wanted to, I challenged her by asking why just a year, why not forever? Mrs. NN’s initial reaction was that it was impossible because traveling is really expensive and we needed to work in an office.
The turning point took place in 2017 when Mrs. NN asked me if I wanted to travel the world for a year because it was always a dream of hers. While I definitely wanted to, I challenged her by asking why just a year, why not forever?
Mrs. NN started doing some research and wanted to see how others were able to support themselves to travel indefinitely. We expected to hear stories of digital nomads, entrepreneurs and social influencers but there was one particular podcast that blew our minds: it was an interview with Retire Early Lifestyle – Perpetual Travel. This couple has been traveling perpetually because they retired in their 30s working regular jobs! This was our introduction to the concept of Financial Independence (aka FI).
We immediately liked the Financial Independence (FI) concept because:
- It provides freedom from corporate jobs that were not our passion
- It allows us to focus on the things that are important to us: health, family/friends and passions
- It was a solution to sustainably travel indefinitely that fit our personality
We were already huge savers but we thought we were saving for a future that everyone else had – a house, a couple of cars and nice stuff. When we realized we could use our savings to buy freedom instead, we started making plans to make our nomadic lifestyle happen.
What were your challenges when you first started pursuing this lifestyle and how did you overcome them?
The most challenging part is living a lifestyle that is unheard of amongst friends and family and going against what you were taught would lead to happiness and success. We were also not initially confident if our plan to quit our jobs and travel without a paycheck coming in would work.
It can feel very lonely when you are the only one in your circle of friends pursuing a specific lifestyle but we found that connecting with like-minded people is very energizing and motivating.
We overcame these challenges by reading a lot of books, listening to hours of podcasts and meeting people in the FI community. This gave us confidence that we were not crazy, there are other people that get it and have done it. It can feel very lonely when you are the only one in your circle of friends pursuing a specific lifestyle but we found that connecting with like-minded people is very energizing and motivating.
What are your challenges today?
We recently did a one year reflection post on our pros and cons of the nomadic lifestyle. The challenges we have are keeping a routine, building a community, constantly researching and planning, constantly packing and unpacking, not having a permanent home, staying healthy and living together 24/7. Of course, the pros far outweigh the cons and we had more stressful challenges during our ‘mainstream’ lifestyle.
Since you have been pursuing this lifestyle, what personal dreams have you been able to accomplish?
This lifestyle is our personal dream come true! Being able to travel indefinitely and make the world our home is incredible.
What we always loved about travel is experiencing the wonders of mother nature, experiencing different cultures and tasting delicious ethnic foods… and now we get to do this everyday!
We are also able to spend more time with family because they live in different parts of the world and we are flexible to spend long periods of time with them. We have the space to figure out what our true passions are outside of our work careers, which we are really grateful for.
What do you do to support this lifestyle?
We are financially independent, in other words we live off our savings and investments.
If you had it all to do over… Would you do it again?
Without hesitation!
What would you do differently?
No, I don’t think we would do anything differently except maybe start earlier. But we started when we were ready and we needed to go through the journey of reflection and research in order to make the leap, so I think it happened the way it needed to for us.
What advice do you have for others who are considering this type of lifestyle?
Start taking action today! If you love to travel but are putting it off or don’t think it’s possible, know that you can find a way. Start with a 6 month sabbatical and go explore a few countries, you don’t have to overwhelm yourself by seeing the entire world.
You can probably travel for less than you think and spend less than you do at home. To give you an example, we spent just $28K as a couple for an entire year of travel around the world
You can probably travel for less than you think and spend less than you do at home. To give you an example, we spent just $28K as a couple for an entire year of travel around the world (check out our 1st year of nomadic travel spending report where we dig into our financials as well as what we did). That’s a fraction of our cost of living when we were living in San Francisco.
Surround yourself with people that have done what you want to do. That includes listening to podcasts, reading blogs like this one and joining meetup groups. You’ll discover that there are a lot of different ways that people are able to make their lifestyle a reality and not one size fits all.
Is there anything I may not have asked that you would like to share with others who are considering this way of life?
There is a powerful quote that Bronnie Ware (an Australian nurse) got from patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives that goes like this: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me” (source).
Once you have done it, you will realize that navigating away from the beaten path isn’t all that scary (it’s actually quite the opposite).
This is one of the reasons why we have the life we are living today, it is a life we choose for ourselves and are continuing to make work for us. We are not exactly sure what it will evolve into 5-10 years from now but we will be very intentional about it and not follow what others believe to bring happiness. Once you have done it, you will realize that navigating away from the beaten path isn’t all that scary (it’s actually quite the opposite).
Where can people find you online?
People can find us on our blog at https://www.nomadnumbers.com (please stay in touch by signing-up to our free newsletter, it’s a great way to learn more about us and connect). We are also pretty active on Instagram where we share a daily snapshot of our nomadic journey.
I’d like to thank Mr. & Mrs. Nomad Numbers for taking time to answer our questions and share their story.
Are you wondering how YOU can retire early and travel the world?
I encourage you to check out the Nomad Numbers website and explore the many resources they have made available there for full-time travel and for achieving financial independence. It’s very interesting, eye opening, and inspiring. And if you’ve been searching the web for budget examples of people who are traveling full time, you will also find that at Nomad Numbers!
*All photos are courtesy of Nomad Numbers.
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