SPOILER: it is possible, it is what I am doing.
First, you need to know the history…
From October 2019 to September 2021 I lived and worked in Milan.I was unhappy there. I had made the sacrifice of moving to the big city to seek fortune.I intended to stay there for about ten years… but the COVID-19 quarantine was enough to let me realize that something was not working as I would have expected.
So I looked at the numbers!
During that period I earned:+ 1200 € per month for a full-time job as a social media manager (40 hours per week + unpaid overtime).
and I spent:- 770 € per month for a 25sqm studio apartment (bills included);- 200 € per month to buy food at the supermarket;- 45 € per month for telephone and internet contracts (30 for the fixed line and 15 for the mobile one).= 1015 €(770 + 200 + 45 =1015)
So…
- I worked full-time to earn only 185 € every month.46.25 € every week.(1200 – 1015 = 185); (185 / 4 = 46,25)
- This means that, even before my salary entered my bank account, I was losing 84.5% of its value.(1015 is 84.5% of 1200)
- 33.8 of the 40 hours I was paid for each week was basically to allow me to continue to allow myself to live there and keep going to work.(84.5% of 40 is 33.8)
- Since I worked 40 hours a week, it was as if I was paid just 1.1 € per hour.(46.25 / 40 = 1.1)
When I realized that continuing on that path, I would be stuck in that lifestyle forever, I made a drastic decision:
- I sent a letter to the landlord to interrupt the rent;
- I canceled the fixed internet contract;
- I sent my resignation letter to my boss.
It was during the summer of 2021.3 months later I was homeless and jobless.
From that moment I had 1200 € of lost income but at the same time, my expenses had gone from 1015 € to 215 €.(1015 – 770 – 30 = 215)
Quitting my job, I got around 3600 € in liquidation.
With the liquidation money, I have lived up to now (1 year) spending about € 300 per month.(3600 / 12 = 300)
In the meantime, I also did some temporary jobs in the same work field in which I worked while living in Milan (marketing, social media, and content management) but in this case, I did not have to go to any office so I could work from where I preferred.
Despite this extra income, I have tried never to raise ordinary expenses above € 300 so as to continue to survive on the liquidation money.
With all the extra income, however, I initiated the lifestyle change I needed.
So I left Milan and went on an adventure with my girlfriend and our dog:
- For the first 6 months (September 2021 to March 2022), we lived in a house that was made available to us by an acquaintance. It was a 3-story house located in the middle of the woods and with 5000sqm of land.The most important detail is that the house had been abandoned for the previous 3 years.To make us live there, the owners did not ask us to pay any rent but to clean the house from the dust and the piles of garbage, plus clean the land from brambles and weeds.We paid the “rent” for that house through the time we spent on these cleaning jobs. Since I no longer had a full-time job, I had a lot of free time, so it was a good deal for me.Some of our best memories are in that house. We had no idea what we were doing, but we knew we had done the right thing, so we trusted ourselves.
- Then we moved to my parent's house where we lived for 1 month while we were organizing the next step: on May 1st we left Italy for Portugal.
- We spent 1 month (May 2022) across south France and north Spain living in our car, doing wild camping, and having so many amazing experiences.
- We crossed the Portuguese border in the first days of June 2022. For the first 3 months (June to the end of August) we had some volunteering experiences using the website Workaway.During these experiences, we met fantastic people, worked on super-interesting projects, and visited wonderful places.We were working as volunteers 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. in return, our hosts gave us a roof to sleep under and the food we needed for 3 meals a day.
- Then we spent the month of September house-sitting a farm while the owners were on vacation.There we took care of their vegetable garden and their fruit trees (from which we collected most of the food we ate during the day), a goat (which we milked every day and with whose milk we made cheese), two horses, two cats and a dog (in addition to our dog).
- At the end of September, we moved to our current location (30 min from Lisbon by car) where we are house-sitting a house in the countryside while the family that normally lives here is on a road trip in South America for the next 7 months.Basically, until Easter 2023 we will have this house at no cost (no rent, no bills, free internet) until they return from the trip.Here, we are taking care of their two cats, two dogs, and the chicken coop.
- On their return, we will leave again for a destination currently unknown. We intend to continue with the long-term house-sitting experiences (minimum 5 months) because they give us the freedom to have a free home and a lot of free time that we are dedicating to creating a better future for us
I have recently started working for Italian companies again, earning little more than the salary I earned in Milan but with huge differences:
- I work from where I want;
- I work at the times I want because I have chosen to only accept jobs that pay by the goal and not by the hour;
- I have very low expenses both because I do not have my own home and because Portugal is cheaper than Italy;
- every few months I change location, thus being able to get to know new places, people, and cultures.
In addition, since I left my previous life, many things have changed (war, inflation, energy crisis …) and I can not stop thinking about all the expenses that I have avoided in this last year.
This is our story so far.
We have specific plans for the future: in the upcoming years, we will continue to have the current lifestyle and we will accumulate the wealth necessary to buy a van and we will convert it with our own hands.At that point, we will continue to do this life, but on the road.
I told you our story for a reason, I wanted to tell you that…
…IT CAN BE DONE.
WE ARE A LIVING DEMONSTRATION OF IT.
THE IMPORTANT IS TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP.
If you continue to live in the system, you will remain one of its cogs that works all day to allow those who govern the machine to live a better life than yours.
By exiting the system you will take back your life and you will be able to change things.
Good luck!