Would You Quit Your Dream Job To Do Nothing For 2 Months? : The Saturday Weekend Review #136

SHOULD LIFE’S EXPERIENCES TRUMP A DREAM JOB?

 

We’ve all felt like doing something that seems a bit outrageous but that doesn’t mean that we should do it. Or should we have?

Do you remember creating a dream job list while studying at high school, university or college?

You may have wanted to become a Police Officer, Doctor, Teacher, Mechanic, Painter, Business Owner, Photographer and so on.

I did think about my dream job and creating a list helped keep me motivated although when I moved to Canada my career options were opened up. I’ve just finally landed my foot in the door of one of those dream jobs on my list but I must admit I never believed it would happen.

I recently read a story about Bethany Butzer who left her dream job at Harvard to spend 2 months in a remote cabin near Willisville, Ontario north of Manitoulin Island.

She sold everything she owned and packed up some old clothes and with her husband went into hiding to spend 2 months doing nothing but soaking up life.

Like many people who are workaholics or those so into their jobs they tend to forget about life and themselves. When they are not working they are sleeping or catching up on everything else in life besides themselves. Working long hours can suck the life out of a dream job you wanted so badly which can turn to misery without notice.

It was just this past May that my mum and dad were in Canada and we all went to Tobermory which led to a ride on the Chi-Cheemaun ferry to Manitoulin Island.

I wished I did a bit more research about the island because we spent over an hour driving around looking for human life-form after we left the ferry. We honestly thought we were lost in the middle of nowhere. I took photos of old abandoned food shacks, houses and fields with bikes laying on the ground and old tires hanging about.

If you want somewhere to go that is quiet and away from any type of civilization for about 30-60 mins Manitoulin Island is the place to go. Honestly, we were looking for fun so that type of enjoyment wasn’t for us. When I read that Bethany quit her job at Harvard to spend 2 months just north of Manitoulin Island the first thing I thought was, Why?

Who on earth would want to stay anywhere in the area for 2 months? Well, Bethany wanted to and her reasoning, because she can. So, away she went to a log cabin only accessible by boat to enjoy the sounds of nature day in and day out for 2 months.

What I found interesting was that as the weeks went on she felt more content. I likely would too without having anyone to bother me. Sometimes it’s nice just to chill out away from the world BUT not everyone can do what she has done unless they don’t mind giving everything up.

 

Giving up my dream job

 

Here I am working so hard to land my dream job which I’ve talked about many times on the blog and this woman was giving it all up to soak up nature hiding away from the world.

First of all, you most likely would need to have money in the bank to just up and walk away from a dream job the way Bethany has because the bills still need to get paid.

You’d need some sort of confidence that when you came back to the working world that your job experience and expertise would land you a decent paying job or at least one to pay the bills.

Jobs are not always easy to come by so to up and walk away from a dream job takes some sort of planning. There are many university and college students who graduate with student debt and struggle to find work. What makes her so special? Nothing really.

Anyone can give it all up to hide away from the world, that’s the easy part as far as I’m concerned. It’s coming back that would be the hard part. I asked myself how much money would I need to have saved in the bank to give up my dream job and I struggled to find a number.

So many scenarios played through my mind.

• What if I couldn’t find a job right away?
• Would my wife come with me?
• Does my wife quit her dream job too?
• Do I stop paying for my retirement savings? If not then I’d need money saved until I am able to secure new employment?
• What if I don’t find another comparable job that earns as much money? How important is money to me in comparison to my dream job?
• How would quitting my dream job affect my resume? Would an employer hire me if word got out that I just up and quit my dream job to do nothing for 2 months?

I could probably go on but some people might not have a care in the world. I guess it depends on the person. Bethany learned that you can do what you want and not listen to what everyone thinks you should do. She also believes that we don’t do this enough often. Maybe she’s right but I don’t think you need to take such extreme measures as she has.

I can understand to an extent however money is essential to those that don’t want to live in the forest and off the land so up and quitting a dream job might not top their lists of things to do just because they feel like they can.

Would I do it? Maybe, if I had no kids, a huge emergency savings and confidence that I’d find a job for my entry back to reality. Hard to say really.

Would you do what you feel like if you could even if that meant to quit your dream job?

 

CBB Week At A Glance

 

Hi Everyone!

This past week has been the busiest week all summer for me as we packed up and went on a 2 day vacation 9 hours away to see family. I drove the entire way with a couple of stops in between to take care of the baby and grab a coffee.

We packed a huge cooler for the trip with water, cucumbers, sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, apples from our neighbours tree and some food for our son. Eating fast food is not something we normally do when we go on longer trips as we tend to pack food. The less time we have to spend off the highway the better and sometimes waiting for food can take ages.

After 2 days I drove back so I could do a few things around the house then we hit the road again to come home to my wife’s parents for a few days of relaxation. We can already tell the summer has pretty much come to an end as it’s been freezing outside and it’s getting darker earlier. Even up north it was very cold out and the weather was rainy most of the time. I’m glad we packed sweaters and a jacket.

It looks like we will be loading up on organic garlic, tomatoes, zucchini, green beans and lots more from my father-in-laws garden. This is great because we can save a few dollars on groceries but also enjoy foods that have not been touched with any chemicals. Just love and water!

When I get home I will be chopping our basil to make basil pesto because the basil is ready to go and the last thing I need is for it to die. I rely on my basil cubes throughout the year for that fresh basil taste in most recipes I cook.

Our apples are ready to go and I have someone coming to pick them in about a week to make jam. We still have plenty of jars left from the last two batches so we won’t bother this year.

Next will be the yard clean-up in the Fall which is nice but sad at the same time because we know what is around the corner. Although I take good care of our grass and plants I can already see some of them going brown which means we are near the end of the season.

This week on the blog we had 2 guest posts which worked out great because I didn’t have to write which left me more time to spend with my wife and son. I don’t often have guest posts on the blog but sometimes it’s refreshing to hear what other people have to say to my readers.

Big thanks to everyone who has helped me out with the blog in my absence as I try to spend as much time with my family as I can.

That’s all for now!

How was your week?

-Mr.CBB

 

Published This Week

 

Just in case you’ve missed any of my blog posts this week I will share them all below.

If you have a question that you would like to ask Mr.CBB fill out the Contact Mr.CBB form on the Home Page and send in your questions.

If you want to share a story via a Fan Question only please ensure that there is minimum 500-1000 words and details… we love details!

Right now CBB is posting Tuesday (Grocery Game Challenge) , Thursday (Personal Finance Post), Saturday (Personal Finance and Weekly Wrap-Up and a recipe on Sunday!

• Little Shortbread Lemon Tarts with Raspberry Drizzle
• 9 Ways to DIY Fast Food to Save Money On Convenience Food
• Is It Better To Buy Life Insurance Or Fund Your Retirement?

 

Budget Brags

 

Submit your Deal or Brag:

Saving money while grocery shopping is essential in the CBB family and that’s why we share our grocery shops every week in The Grocery Game Challenge 2015.

What I love the most is when my fans share their amazing shops with me whether it be groceries or other deals they find at a garage sale, online or freebies!!!

If you have a brag that you want me to share email me at canadianbudgetbinder@yahoo.(ca) < remove brackets) or fill out my contact form by Friday each week to have your brag considered for the Saturday post.

Hi Mr.CBB,

I have checked out our small local farmers market lately and last week I bought an organic zucchini for $1.00. That got me an entry into the weekly draw, which I won!

The prize is a pick your own sampler of goodies from each vendor up to a value of $5.00 each. If you go over that price you pay the difference.

I also won one pound of ground beef, a head of organic leaf lettuce, quart baskets of strawberries, raspberries, plums, and grape tomatoes, plus a 4 pack of fresh made pita bread and a jar of peach Bellini jam(has Peach Schnapps and champagne in it) that was $6.00 so it cost me $1.00.

I will also be getting a shopping bag with the market logo but they were out this week. So nice to get this lovely fresh and local food and it certainly was much more than I expected!!!

Oh,and the chocolate zucchini loaf I made with that zucchini that won me all this was delicious too!!

– Christine W.

 

Making A Difference (MAD)

 

Note: If you are a personal finance blogger (anywhere around the world) and would like your blog to be MAD featured simply drop me an email and I’ll explain the process to you.

This is my way of giving back to the personal finance community through networking and sharing knowledge with my fans.

Hi Mr CBB & Readers

We are The Thrifty Clan a brand new just out of the box blog; we are all about finance, family life, and little bits in between.  I am Denise the main voice behind the keyboard. However George (hubs) wants to pop in from time to time with his articles.

We had been on quite a journey over the past number of years when my husband lost his job and remained unemployed for two years. It was a dark time for us and our family. However we have always been big believers in everything happens for a reason, and living a life of no regrets.

We took this time to make some much-needed changes in our life and learned a lot about ourselves along the way.  We are quarter way clearing down our debt, but we still have a way to go. That’s why we like so many other people having found themselves in this position decided to start a blog.

We hope it will help keep us on track as we work towards our ultimate goal of debt-free living. We found so many blogs that helped us and I guess we wanted a chance to give something back and maybe reading about our journey will help someone else start theirs.

I have spent all of my adult life working in finance, across banking, accountancy and debt collection.  I intend to bring my experience to our blog. It is important to remember no matter what your background in life this can happen to anyone.

As I have written in our blog “Clan” ultimately means family whether through ancestry, surname or interests.  We are all a family as we share our experiences and journey with money. So please drop by and share your story with us.

Mr. CBB we would like to thank you again for this opportunity, and we wish you and yours all the very best.

Take care

Denise & George

 

Top Recipe

 

Food  and grocery shopping is a BIG part of CBB because food is a large part of the budget which people struggle the most with.

If you are someone who would rather buy convenience meals or products consider cooking homemade meals or baking from scratch.

Not only will you save money but you will be proud of what you accomplished and you’ll see that from the smiles on those you feed.

If you don’t already know I have a second Facebook page called The Free Recipe Depot where I share recipes from other Food Bloggers from around the world.

I also share recipes on CBB once a week on Sundays either made by me or my in-house home blog cook Nicola Don!

This week our Top Recipe Pick goes to Michelle at Brown Eyed Baker for this amazing Coconut Bundt Cake with White Chocolate Coconut Glaze. The cake looks so moist which is what you would expect from a bundt cake.

 

Editor’s Pick

 

Every week I will pick a blog post of the week from around the web that I found interesting and want to share with you and an Editor’s top blog post pick.

Editor’s pick (That’s me Mr.CBB) this week goes to Robert over at The College Investor who wrote a post about Overcoming the Fear of Losing Money In The Stock Market. With the latest news about China it may have put investors in ‘Panic Mode’ because fear really can take us humans by storm. A great read.

 

How people find CBB

 

Every week I get thousands of people visit Canadian Budget Binder because they did a search online and found my blog. Keep in mind any spelling errors below are because I share with you the exact way they typed their search engine query to land on my blog.

• Relationship Help When She Spends Too Much– It’s amazing how a relationship can break down over money. If people aren’t careful they may just lose the people they said they loved the most.
• Cheap Pregnancy Tests Don’t Work– My wife used 4 Dollar Store Pregnancy Tests and all 4 came back positive. Spend the $$$ if you don’t believe in cheap pregnancy tests. Even our doc told us to just use the dollar store tests.
• How should a wife spend money?– Really? I guess not everyone talks about money before they get married. It could be the demise of your relationship if you don’t.
• Why is it important to compare prices when buying food?- Well, unless you don’t mind paying a higher price it’s best to compare so you get the BEST PRICE.
  

Don’t forget to subscribe to my daily blog post by entering your email address on the home page and verifying the subscription email once it is sent to you.

-Mr.CBB

Related Articles:

• The Saturday Weekend Review #132: Mom Dresses Child in Designer Clothes to show Wealth
• The Saturday Weekend Review #133: Property Seller Removes house listing after many frustrations
• The Saturday Weekend Review #134: 6 Ways to Give Back Without Monetary Expectations
• The Saturday Weekend Review #135 :How to be a good neighbour without monetary expectations

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