Finding Your Perfect Work-Life Balance | Lauren & Steven from Trip of a Lifestyle

In today's episode, you'll hear from Lauren and Steven who write over at Trip of a Lifestyle.

This awesome couple took a six-month honeymoon to Hawaii and that changed everything.

They got a taste of traveling on a budget and earning along the way.

We can't wait to showcase how they took control of their work-life balance and living life to the fullest.

Listen, learn, and let us know what you think.
Episode Summary
Discovering Financial Independence

Lauren started paying attention to income in college
* She worked her way through college with scholarships and jobs
* Then when her and Steven moved together to California they started talking to advisors
* Steven's started getting interested in investing after he started working
* They ended up getting sold some really bad investments from a bank investor
* Although it was a bad situation it was a big learning moment
* They actually came up with this idea of having investments covering your expenses before formally discovering FI
* It was also really helpful that they started early before they had faced lifestyle inflation
* The big change for them after finding FI/RE was just saving with more of a purpose
* They end up moving back to Florida to take advantage of a free master's program for Steven
* This program was based on a requirement that Steven would teach for a bit in Florida
* During his teaching commitment, they got married and started brainstorming their honeymoon

Long Term Honeymoon

* They had a goal of really driving down the cost per day for a Hawaii trip
* Instead of a week or two, they would stay six months
* They bought a used car, rented an apartment, and worked 10hrs per week
* When the trip was over, they had broken even and their net-worth actually grew
* This trip supercharged their will to retire early
* Lauren & Steven were actually more excited about work because they knew what they wanted now
* When they returned to Florida they also bought a small condo for cash
* Even though they owned their house, they brought in roommates to bring in more money

Finding Work-Life Balance

* To enable this type of travel they leveraged their skills to earn money while on the go
* Steven picked up some private tutoring jobs
* They both also do photography
* Lauren negotiated with her employer for a part-time remote job which they agreed
* When they would go on trips after buying their condo, they'd sign short term tenants
* Lauren will also help out small business with social media

All 61 National parks in seven months

* After a period of working after returning from the honeymoon, work started taking a toil
* They felt really burnt out and felt like they should just be doing more of this travel
* So they came up with this idea of seeing all 61 national parks
* Total cost of the trip including van depreciation, healthcare, chartering planes etc was $37k
* That's total for two people and seven months
* It would have only cost $21k if they skipped a couple of the really remote ones
* Over that seven month period between side jobs and rent, they earned $37k
* So their income matched their expenses while taking an incredible trip
* You can get the full breakdown of this trip here

Their Spending

* They have spent $18k-$27k per year
* They are comfortable not chasing a specific FI number