It’s been a while. A little over two months since I’ve last written. It’s been a wild ride. I am now sitting in an office completing my fifth week of work with the best client and team I’ve ever had. We are almost fully moved into our apartment. All that is left is putting paintings on the wall.
Seattle is all that I thought it would be and more. It’s as cheap and calm and beautiful as I pictured. My partner seems to like it as well despite having never visited before. Despite this week at work being a little crazy, I am the calmest and most at peace I’ve been in my adult life. This was a good change.
I think back to my life in New York and almost immediately tense up. I don’t know how I dealt with the loud, impersonal, grey life I was living. Actually I do: an excess of food and alcohol. Though I’m sad that I left the friends I’ve made for the last four years behind and most of my friends and family in another time zone, I am so glad we did this for all the reasons I mentioned above and of course: the financial perspective.
Even with all of the moving and set up costs when I look at the amount I’ve spent in the past few months of living in Seattle there is a sharp drop from anything I’ve ever spent in NYC. We found a small house in the nicest neighborhood in Seattle with a one bedroom on the top floor with south and west facing windows with a view of the Space Needle and downtown. The light is amazing – as is the price. It’s the only place we saw that had a dishwasher as well. Apparently those are rare in cities: NYC included, but we lucked out while living there and always had one.
The transition has been quite taxing as expected. Moving across the country while I acted as our realtor, moving coordinator, packer, physical movers and recruiter has been a challenge. That combined with starting a fun and challenging job has left me quite exhausted. Last weekend I mostly stayed around the house and recuperated and it was beyond amazing. I’m hoping to do something similar this weekend to fully rejuvenate myself.
So far I have spent more than I budgeted on eating and drinking out mostly due to making new friends and exploring a new city that has a completely different list of specialties and even a lot of drinks I had never heard of before. I’m trying to remind myself that that is part of living and as long as I’m spending my money in line with my values everything will be fine.
At my budgeted spending level and current sweet salary I should be retired in 5.7 years. I was trying to push that to 4 years so I could retire before 30, but we shall see about that. 5.7 years is not that long. I currently have a running count that I look at every day: 1477 days today. Watching that number decrease has felt surprisingly rewarding. If you think about it in years that’s a while, but nothing compared to the 40 years most people spend trading their life energy for paper. I’m so happy with this new life we committed to and am excited to see what’s next.