How and why I quit my 9-5 job

Why I quit my 9-5 job

My life hasn’t always been full of traveling and adventures. When I was about 20 years old, my life was headed straight down the 9-5 path. Not because I was dying to spend my life in an office, but because I hadn’t realised there were other possibilities. How was I gonna make a living without having a job, right? I knew I wanted to travel and see the world, but I thought the only way to do that was to have a stable job and travel when I had time off. And to begin with, that’s what I did.

After taking a gap year, I started university when I was 21. Throughout my three years at uni I managed to travel quite a bit. I did one semester abroad in Australia, two summer school programs in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as well as going to Costa Rica for 6 weeks in the middle of one semester.

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I realised the 9-5 life wasn’t for me

In 2017, I graduated with a degree in Business and started a 9-5 job, thinking I had life all figured out. I had a degree, a stable job – it seemed like I was on a fast track to having the kind of life that you’re supposed to have. The kind that society sees as successful. But the thing is, that what is seen by society as being successful, is just based on what your life looks like from the outside. Rather than if you’re actually happy doing whatever it is you’re doing. And for me, that’s exactly how it was. It didn’t feel right. I knew it wasn’t how I wanted to spend my life.
I felt stuck. And even more so when I started realising that this is what most people do. Have a job that they may or may not like, where they spend about 40 hours a week. Often counting down the days to the weekend or to their next vacation. So naturally I started thinking, is this it? Is this what my life will be like from now on? That’s when I started feeling stuck in a way that I can’t even explain.

It wasn’t that my job was bad or anything like that. Not at all. But sitting at a desk for 40 hours a week was just so incredibly dull. I was essentially just living the same day over and over. Everything was so predictable and I was practically on autopilot. It was just more of the same. I was traveling for about 4 months out of the year, but I still felt that being stuck at an office for 8 months of the year was no way to live my life. But I was still choosing it, because whatever you’re not changing, you are choosing.

I started realising there were other options

At the beginning of 2018, I got two months off, which I used to backpack through South and Central America. During this trip I met a lot of people that were traveling full-time, which was when I realised that being stuck at a desk every day wasn’t the only way to make a living. Since all these people managed to be traveling full time, I figured there must be some way for me to do this too.

At this time I was not at a point financially where I could just walk away from my job and start roaming the planet. Sure, I could have traveled for a couple of months or maybe up to a year. But without an income, I would just be burning through my savings and it would just be a matter of when my balance would eventually reach that zero. So I had to find a way to earn money without having an actual job. I met a lot of people during my travels that were doing just that – some were running online stores, others were teaching English online. Some worked remotely for companies in their home country, some did stock trading. There were people that made money from social media. It seemed that there were lots of ways to make money without having to show up at an office five days a week.

How I managed to quit my job

There isn’t one simple answer to this question. No magic formula. Just like there is no “get rich quick” formula – if there were, everyone would be doing it :))

I had owned stocks for many years, but I wasn’t actively buying and selling them, they were mostly just sitting there. But most of them were indeed making me some money. So I started realising that if you have a significant amount of money to invest, you wouldn’t need a high return in percentage to be able to make a living off of it. That’s when I started following the stock market more closely and investing more money into it. I also paid more attention to news as well as quarterly/annual reports, and stuff like that. Very simply but – trading stocks is about buying a stock and then selling it at a higher price. Having a degree in Business definitely helped with all this. I will add that stock trading does not provide you with a stable income, the returns vary greatly from one month to the next.

Disclaimer: You can of course lose money on stocks and I am not advising you to purchase stocks

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I saved up a lot of money

Another important factor in being able to quit my job was that I was spending a very little portion of my salary every month. I would invest most of my salary into stocks, bonds or I’d put in a savings account that would pay me interest every month. So my money was essentially working for me.

Living in Iceland, it’s very easy to spend a lot of money since just about everything is expensive. Just leaving your house is gonna cost you at least 20USD :)))
Going out for a few drinks could easily cost you anything upwards of 100 USD. That’s about 10 nights in a hostel in Asia or South America! So I tried to stay away from spending money on things like that. Of course I still went out to eat and for drinks occasionally. I wasn’t going to those fancy places that serve things like souflé, or that kind of fancy stuff you can’t even pronounce and come in tiny portions. And instead of having five drinks, I’d just have one.

I rarely bought takeaways, I didn’t buy the newest iphone whenever a new one was released (my current phone is almost 5 years old haha). Nor did I have 10 pairs of expensive sneakers (I had one or two). I started buying mostly second hand clothes. This list could go on and on – but simply put, I wasn’t spending money left and right on things I didn’t really need. Those 20USD here and there really do add up.

I worked. A lot

I had a part time job from the time I was about 14, and throughout my years in high school, college, and university. Then I’d work during summer and during every christmas break – all of which is very common in Iceland. But in many other countries that might be considered unusual. Often I had two jobs, there were a couple of summers when some days I worked at one job from 9-5 and then another one from 5-9. I also had a part time job even after I got my 9-5, not because I needed the extra income, but just to be able to save up more money.

So throughout my years of studying I was saving up a lot of money. This was also due to the fact that tuition fees at the University of Iceland, where I studied, are only about 650USD per year. Since I had a part time job, I didn’t need to take any student loans.

Fast forward about two years – I have now managed to quit my job and make a living by investing my money. I trade stocks and then a part of my money is in bonds and mutual funds. Even though I don’t have to show up to work anymore – that doesn’t mean that my life is a constant vacation. Although I’ll admit that it does certainly feel like that sometimes. I still do some “work”. It’s just not one where I need to show up at an office for a certain amount of time every day. Sometimes I even put numbers in an excel sheet :))) But the difference is that I’m doing it on my own terms and on my own time. And most importantly, it can be done from anywhere in the world.

Disclaimer: You can of course lose money on stocks and I am not advising you to purchase stocks