How did you change your life?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been pondering making a real change in my life at some point in the near future. Unfortunately events beyond our control are forcing our hand a bit. Trouble is, any change I make affects not just me but my wife and our two kids. So we’ve got to go about it as intelligently and realistically as possible lest we risk losing everything we’ve worked so hard for.

I’ve been an IT consultant for the past 12 years. In that capacity we’ve hit some geographic highlights in both Canada and the US, including San Francisco, Boston, DC, Toronto and Montreal. But I’m dead tired of the IT buiz. For I can’t remember how many years, I’ve wanted to get into cabinet maker carpentry, ceramics/pottery and stained glass crafts. It’s been a dream of mine for most of my adult life. My wife is crazy about the idea as well. Catch is, although both of us are quite handy, we’ve never actually practiced any of the above crafts seriously. Oh sure, we’ve refinished furniture, messed around in our friends’ workshop while on vacation in Nova Scotia. Spun a vase and bowl or two. Learned plenty of carpentry/handyman skills from our respective fathers. But that’s all.

I can’t even say that either of us have a particular gift for it - we simply don’t know yet - except we are very willing and anxious to learn and develope our skills and see where that leads.

To that end, we’ve seriously entertained the idea of moving to the Champlain shores of Vermont where we can have a home with a small workshop in which to practice and hone these skills. Certainly the desire to do this is very strong. Vermont is also a perfect place for us to pursue our passion for sailing, skiing and mountain biking. It seems a great place to raise our kids as well.

I know that it’ very difficult to make these drastic changed over night. We also do not have access to unlimited funds. We’ve done well but I don’t imagine for a second that neither of us will ever have to work again in our lives. We have enough to make a good beginning and I certainly hope that we can turn our crafts into a small business, but not on day one or even year one. We plan on starting slow, perhaps with me getting an IT job in Vermont just to pay for our living expenses and shop supplies. I’m certainly not expecting to earn anywhere near as much as I would in some large high tech industry center.

So what I’m looking for mostly are some words of wisdom, encouragement and even cautionary tales from posters who’ve had the nerve to make this kind of drastic change in their lifestyle (by choice or not). We’re up for the adventure but we are not looking to step onto that road with blinders on.

2

I’m 24, so it seems like my life is ever-changing and a bit of stability would be more welcome than a drastic change.
But I can tell you about my dad, who is a role model for me and I hope to do what he did one day:

He worked at an insurance company for almost 30 years, and during the last 10 years of that, he was vice-president of the company.

Then he got bored. He always liked to travel, especially to Europe, and whenever he went on a trip to a different country, he made a point to learn as much of the language as he could in the few weeks prior to the trip. He loved foreign films, and was deeply interested in different cultures.

On a whim, he decided to take the test required to be a foreign service diplomat. He studied for this test during most of his free time. He rightly describes this 8-hour exam as grueling, but he passed, almost to his surprise.
He said that usually only one out of 200 people who take this test pass it.

He was invited to go to DC to take the oral exam, and my mom and a few others thought he was silly, but he took the trip to Washington and took the test, another 8-hour exam, only this time he needed to speak in front of a tight-assed staff.

I got an e-mail from him after his trip to DC that said “Oh, I passed the oral exam. I was the only one who passed out of the 18 people who took the test that day.”

So he passed, and now he is awaiting placement in a country, he doesn’t know which one yet. He quit his job after 30 years at the insurance company.

All we have to worry about is whether he passes the FBI background check.
My dad is sorta…um.nerdish. He should pass, because he’s never even gotten a speeding ticket in his whole life. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not one to take an adventure.
Good Luck, Quicksilver.

3

Ah yes, been there, done that.

About 5 years ago, we faced the facts that my husband was going to go insane if he had to be a webmaster for the rest of his life, we started him on the path to becoming a professional helicopter pilot. Essentially, we drastically scaled back on all of our expenses, got the cheapest place we could, and devoted his entire, as well as his weekends and evenings, to getting his ratings and hours. Then the fun really started, because low-time pilots make diddly-all for the first couple years.

I recommend that both of you be absolutely 100% about the idea, and at least one of you keeps a job that will pay expenses until the biz takes off, then ease the other one into it full-time. Sounds like you guys are being practical about it, so you should really be able to make it work.

We are just really coming out the other side, financially, and are very happy about the change. We are now ready for phase 2, wherein I will work another 3-5 years, then knock off and go back to school full-time, while hopefully building up my own crafts to the point where they are bringing in some money.

Best of luck to you! I envy your kids.

4

Damn, I meant to hit preview.

We devoted his entire paycheck, as well as all of his evenings and weekends, to getting his ratings.

I should also mention that he was 35 when we started to make the change, and several years into a computer career.

5

I’d love to do the same thing. my screen name is turner becasue I love to work onthe wood lathe so much. Unfortunately, I’m a wimp with no guts and wouldn’t think of quitting my job to pursue my dream.

Here’s what I’d recommend you do. Buy some decent equipment and set up a shop in your garage. I’d suggest a table saw, drill press, planer, jointer, and miter saw–total outlay–about 2-2.5K. Find something crafty you’d like to make amd make a bunch of them. Find a decent sized craft show in your area and test the waters–see how well your stuff sells. Have some cards made up (on your printer at home maybe) and put them out at your display–see how many calls you get from the cards. As George Carlin used to say, “if you nail two boards together some Schmuk will buy it.” But if you get calls from your cards, people thought enough of your work to go to some trouble.

If you’re successful to this extent, make something more elaborate and charge more to see if you have the “fine woodworking” skills you’d require to make a living at it. There are books out there that give you guidelines on pricing your work.

Finally, If things look good business wise, move to some tourist trap like Branson MO or something like that so you get a decent tourist business going.

Not that I’ve given this much thought:)

Bill

6

My husband is an extraordinary self-taught woodworker (i’m allowed to brag; I’m his wife), but he has no interest in making a living at it because it would drive him crazy to do things like, well, cabinets, where you have to make the same thing over and over. Or use other people’s ideas about what wood one should use.

However, if you’re not as ornery about such things as he is, I suspect it could be a highly satisfying life.

There are some very good fine woodworking forums on the web, some of which he reads himself. You might find it extremely valuable to hang out on those and ask some professionals about the business, get some tips and food for thought, that kind of thing.

Also, when it comes time to outfit the shop, it’s amazing how many tools you can pick up secondhand. My husband’s tool retailer maintains a little bulletin board where people sell things–often there’s nothing wrong with them; they’re high quality brands like Delta and Makita and the like–someone’s just upgrading or changing their shop. That’s how my husband got his dust collection system, and how he sold his planer when he realized he’d bought one too small for his needs. Keep your eyes open and ask around locally if there’s such a clearinghouse for tool sales.

In general, people can live on much less than they think. You just have to willing to shake off the pervasive ideas about what one “needs.” There are also good books on this, on simplifying one’s life and on being a cheapskate.

Oh, to be in Vermont where access to good wood is so easy! Drool.

7

I don’t know if this will help you, but if it means living without a salary (or a very low salary), then I would recommend picking up “The Complete Tightwad Gazette” by Amy Dacyzen (look it up under the title; I can’t vouch for her name).

Amy was a graphic artist in Boston when she married. Her husband was leaving the Navy after doing his 20, and she wanted a house full of kids in the country. They moved to Maine, found a house that matched their needs, and along the way, learned to live on as little money as possible, without falling into complete poverty. The family grew to six kids.

Here’s the kicker: she wanted to start a part-time business, something she could run on her own time. She started a newsletter, called The Tightwad Gazette. She started doing interviews, then more interviews. The Associated Press ran the story, and she was photographed hanging clothes to dry in the attic and talking about reusing alumininum foil.

Circulation grew and grew and grew, and topped out at about 100,000. Compilations followed (three of them).

Finally, she decided to quit. She had written all she wanted to. She had received offers for the trademark, for other projects. She could have been a low-rent Martha Stewart, but she wanted her family and her life back, so she quit. Last I heard, they were living a little more comfortably, but they’re still doing the same tightwadding stuff as before.

The point (and I am about to make one), is that you get more than a buncha tips about living cheap. You also get a philosophical education, and much support, into moving away from the mainstream world, where you can discover just how little you need to be happy. This isn’t one of these stupid simplicity talks. Amy likes to shop for antique furniture, and her husband has his projects as well. But they’ve discovered that we live so richly, that we end up buying things that we don’t really like or use, and that by some judicious shopping, we can still get exactly what we want.

Anyway, the Complete TG gives you all the newsletters and costs about twenty bucks. It’s a bargain.

8

[list][list][list][list][list][list]NOT BRANSON, MO![LIST][LIST]:eek:

9

Thanks for all the tips folks. I knew I could count on you. I’m off to do more research and some more thinking about how we can make this work for us.

When we’ve set up our shop you are all welcome to our place in Vermont for french toast and real Vermont maple syrup - did I mention that’s something else I wanted to try to make for fun?! :smiley:

10

QuickSilver, that’s amazing!

I’m trying to get money together to do an 18-week filmmaker’s bootcamp next year and learn how to make indie pictures. My boyfriend has got a primo Mac and a camera and video-editing capabilities, I’ve got a well-thumbed copy of Rodriguez’s Rebel Without A Crew. Like you, I don’t have solid experience doing this - I’m going to be learning the ropes from scratch, and who knows where it will take me. I might not have the talent for this in the end - I think I could be a writer, I KNOW I could be a producer, maybe “director” isn’t in me (and that would be okay, too).

I did the “safe” thing after college - took a job in the field I went to school in, worked my way up the ladder for 4 years, hated it, finally quit and moved away exactly 1 year ago. I get a lot of negative feedback from family and friends who are living very secure, comfortable lives - stuff like “Do you know how hard it is/how few people make it/You’ll never make any money at it/If you haven’t done it before what makes you think you can do it now” - those are also the voices in my head at times.

I realized when I was in the corporate world that I never, ever wanted to be worrying about getting promoted, who had the better office, etc. as ends in themselves. I realize that office politics are part of any work, but I want to worry about things like “Is the hero more interesting the less we know about his past, or do we need to introduce it somewhere, and if we do, how do we keep the flow of the story moving forward?”

But I’ve got a mantra: I may not make it. I may have no talent. I may hate it once I’m doing it. I may be sucked into a soulless corporate studio system (if I’m lucky!). But if I don’t try it, I DEFINITELY won’t make it.

Fortunately you are currently in a field where you can do freelance/consulting jobs when you get in tight spots as you start out. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in New England, but Vermont is BEAUTIFUL and full of people who have quit the corporate rat race to work with their hands. Thanks for this thread. I wish you bundles of luck.