Rarely are people who achieve a non-traditional retirement profiled on mainstream media, and when they do it’s usually with a “omigosh look at these crazy people” type of article. So I was surprised when I ran across this couple who talk casually about saving 50% of their income and taking year-long vacations every few years on a Nationwide Insurance commercial. Via ERE Facebook page.
Further digging revealed their full names as Richard Ligato and Amanda Bejarano-Ligato, who run their own website and wrote a book Wide-Eyed Wanderers: A Befuddling Journey from the Rat Race to the Roads of Latin America & Africa in 2005. Here’s another brief description of their story from a USA Today article:
“The key is living like you did when you were a student,” says Rich Ligato, 45, who lives in San Diego. While not completely financially independent, Ligato and his wife, Amanda, stopped working steady jobs more than a decade ago. Their goal is working for three years, taking odd jobs, saving their money, then enjoying a year-long vacation break, doing something such as living in India or biking along the Western coast of the U.S. When they return, they take entirely different jobs.
Rich is currently teaching biking classes and managing an apartment, while Amanda is teaching yoga. “It’s not about money, it’s about freedom,” he says. “If you’re just driving to make things secure and safe, think about what that means. There’s nothing interesting in life. You might as well die.”
(Updated to add: I haven’t read the financial particulars of their situation, but given their 50% savings rate alone the math would say they could work one year and take the next year off if they just kept their spending rate constant. But they work 3 and take 1 year off. So even if they spend double what they do when working, then they could put away 1 year of savings for retirement, and then spend the other 2 years on their year-long vacation. That’s still more than the average person puts away (1 full year of expenses every 4 years, or 25% of their combined annual salary every year). This may be off, but roughly how I imagine it working out.)
I always get excited by stories like this; they may not be “retired” but they are living consciously and achieving their dreams. (I’m really looking for one of these stories where they have kids and travel the world.) I still bought their book and starting reading it already. Not sure how new this is, but Amazon does this neat thing now when you order a physical book, they let you start reading the beginning on the Kindle while you wait for it to arrive. Nice for us who prefer physical books but are also impatient. 😉