The Case for Mini Retirement
Ah, retirement. That light at the end of the tunnel that so many workers salivate at the thought of, yet feels so far away. Robert Wringham, of New Escapology, describes retirement as “the secular afterlife.” The magical place that dreams are pushed into, where everything you ever wanted to do can finally happen. An older coworker of mine would repeat a mantra to herself and others in the office at least once a week: “7 more years! 7 more years!”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live my life in purgatory.
The FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is a race to this finish line, and while I’ve been a member of this movement for the past 6 years, earlier in my life I didn’t even really consider traditional retirement as a viable option for myself. Instead, I focused on a cycle of working and traveling that went:
Get hired> Work > Quit> Travel for an extended period > Come back to a new location> Get hired> Repeat
Breaks like these can be classified as mini retirements, and having taken numerous breaks over my life, even in times of very low earning, I highly recommend them to everyone (and by highly recommend, I mean urge most people I meet to quit their jobs immediately) .
What is a Mini Retirement?
Mini retirements are periods of time when individuals take extended breaks from their traditional careers or daily routines to explore other interests, travel, learn new skills, and engage in personal development. Unlike traditional retirement, which typically occurs later in life, mini retirements are spread throughout one's working years. Ideally, the minimum length for a mini retirement is one month.
While it’s great to have that end goal of never working again in your mind, mini retirements can push you in the right direction to create a life that aligns with your values and desires rather than following a traditional work-to-retire model that grants a lifetime’s practice of delayed gratification.
There are SO many reasons to take time away from work that will give you a higher quality of life during and after your sabbatical.
They include:
Recovery from burnout
Taking care of your physical/mental health
Pivoting in your career
Learning a new skill
Easing into what life can be like without work- essentially a trial run for real retirement
Experimenting with different hobbies
Clearing your mind of current stresses and rediscovering your personal goals
Fully enjoying each era of your life
This last reason I think, is the most compelling because we change so much as people throughout our lives. You’re only going to have all the glories of youth once. If you’re a parent, young children who love hanging out with you are a special and passing season. Maybe you have a found family of friends whose lives have all lined up perfectly to be in sync. If you have something precious in your life that you want to give your attention to, the time is NOW.
I know what you might be thinking…of course, not working for a while sounds great, but how can I afford to? The boring answer is just to save, to make whatever your mini-retirement goal is your priority. Time off is a privilege, but even if you’re working minimum wage jobs, it’s possible with planning and a budget. I did it time and time again, several times while working low-paying hourly part-time jobs.
Here is a timeline of the notable mini retirements I’ve taken in my life since after college (I’ve defined mini retirements in my life as anything over two weeks since that’s usually the entire annual vacation allotment for US workers, so this omits regular vacations and short trips.) All of my mini-retirements revolved around travel because that’s been my natural pull my whole life, but obviously, mini retirements can be spent doing whatever you want.
New Zealand
My first post-college job was in Washington state as an hourly position as a school photographer paying $12/hr. There was a natural lull in January with no shoots, so I took the month to travel across New Zealand (clutching a bag full of ramen the whole way) and returned to the same job.
Southeast Asia
About a year and a couple more added jobs later, I had saved up enough to quit them all, leave the PNW, and travel across Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia for two and a half months with my best friend. It’s easy to be ultra-budget in Southeast Asia, and I was covered even with the savings from my low-wage jobs (which paid $7/hr, $10/hr, and $15/hr).
Shanghai
Not long after that, I went to live in Shanghai with a long-distance boyfriend I had met in New Orleans on a shorter trip. He worked for Disney and was moving to China for a new theme park there. He invited me to come along, and how could I say no? For three months, I lived in a fancy apartment paid for by Disney and covered my own spending with savings, sporadic modeling, and very occasionally teaching English, which was fun enough not to really count as work.
Vietnam
After leaving China, I was living in Boston, where I took several normal-length vacations until I talked my first salaried job ($42k/year- my highest earner ever) into letting me go to Vietnam for three weeks during a slow season.
Circumnavigating the World
Between moving from Boston to Connecticut, my husband and I put all our belongings in his grandmother’s basement and traveled around the world for 7 months (I had saved about $7k working at the previous salaried job- the whole trip cost us each $6k).
Great Britain
Once we hit the road in the RV from Connecticut, I was working remotely, and we were constantly traveling, so there wasn’t much to ‘vacation’ from. Our life is what many people retire to. Most recently, though, I paused my part-time contracting work ($50/hr) for 4 weeks to go to England and Scotland.
You might notice a pattern in my mini retirements and it’s that they often revolve around a location change. If you’re already semi-nomadic (or just going through a life change), moving provides the perfect opportunity to take time off as you find yourself in a liminal space, not quite in one place or another. Another opportunity is when you leave a job or are laid off. It’s a gut reaction to reach for another stable job immediately, but if you’ve been saving, this can be a fun and exciting opportunity instead.
How to Make Mini Retirements Work In Your Career
The top concern people express about taking time off is the worry that they won’t be able to find another job. There’s also the popular career advice that gaps on your resume are undesirable and will prevent you from being hired. But both of these are fallacies based in fear of the unknown.
In my experience, and the experience of many others, leaving one job for a mini retirement, more often than not results in returning to an even better position. The best way to make more money is to change jobs, and why not give yourself well-deserved time as you climb the income ladder? In 2023, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that people who quit for a better job saw their wages jump by 6.7% on average at their new employer. Another general rule of thumb is that white-collar employees should ask for a 10-20% raise with each new position.
As for resume gaps, instead of hiding my non-working time as something to be ashamed of, I actually highlight it. Here are two excerpts from my actual resume:
Near the top of my resume where I summarize my professional skills, I include:
“Global perspective and travel expertise, with experiences in over 35 countries that have shaped strong adaptability, empathy, and an understanding in international trends.”
Then after my work experience, I have this:
Additional Skills
Multicultural/ International Experience
Supplemented professional experience with challenging opportunities abroad that inspired a wider world perspective, personal growth, and independence
Lived in and traveled extensively through Europe in 2008-2009
Lived and taught English in Shanghai, China in 2013
Circumnavigated the world in 2017, from SE Asia to India, Eastern Europe, and North America
In every interview I’ve had, my time traveling and doing whatever I want has actually been an advantage. It makes me stand out among other candidates, starts fun conversations in the interview that show my passion and curiosity, gives me and the interviewer something to bond over if they also enjoy travel or want to do more of it, and shows intangible skills.
It also serves to emphasize something I try to make clear in my jobs: Taking time is a personal value of mine, and it WILL be happening while I am employed by you. Setting this boundary from the start is the easiest way to get your time later. And rather than being a negative to your employer, it can be used as a negotiation tool.
For example, at the start-up I was working for in Boston, I began as a part-time hourly employee. When they promoted me to full-time, when it came to salary negotiations, I pointed out what I would expect as a raise on top of the normal salary from the promotion. Then instead of asking for that amount, I re-emphasized that I value time over money and would be taking more time instead of that raise. This came back later when during the slow season (which was mind-numbingly boring for how little work there was to do) I requested 3 weeks off to go to Vietnam. I got pushback and they tried to reduce it to 2 weeks. I was able to reference back to that original conversation and say “remember, you are paying me less so I can do this.” I got my 3 weeks.
Another time, I was working for a small company with rather old-fashioned values and very little time off alloted. I requested a chunk of time off and the HR person who I was friendly with had to talk it over with the head-honcho company owner. HR called me up and said ‘we can give you the time off…..but we can’t pay you for it.’ I said that was absolutely no problem. I could hear my colleague breathe a sigh of relief and ‘I knew you’d say that!’ Making your priorities clear from the start help others advocate for you and think of creative solutions to help give you the time.
This second example also shows the power of unpaid time off. While PTO is a fantastic benefit, I find that so many employees struggle to think outside it. Yes, if you are not saving, PTO is the only way to take vacations. But if you’re already thinking about retirement or mini retirement, you are being intentional with your money and putting amounts of aside to buy yourself time. If you’re hourly, negotiating for unpaid time off can be relatively easy. If you’re salaried, your company may have to finagle things around a little more, but sabbaticals are a well-known option that many companies are willing to grant.
Companies are SO much more receptive to unpaid time off, naturally, and are more willing to bend rules and create exceptions if you put it on the table. This can even be helpful for them if they do have a slow season or decent coverage while you’re gone. What business doesn’t love spending less money?
Ultimately, it’s important to remember that for many salaried positions, hiring new people is a HUGE cost and time sink. Resources put into recruiting, interviewing, and training can take months or even a year to pay off. It is infinitely easier to grant time to a good employee.
Work Hard to Play Hard
The trick to taking extensive time off and still have your employer like you is to do your job well when you are doing it. The whole concept of mini retirements might sound like the realm of the ultimate slacker, but to the contrary, the harder your work ethic is, the more time you’ll be able to bargain for. Your negotiating power is null if you’re not an essential part of the team. You need to bring value immediately, show that you’re serious about your work, and work hard to delegate and ensure the whole place won’t catch fire as soon as you leave.
Jillian of Retire Often, relayed a story of one client who quit her job and gave 4 months notice to help the company transition to a new hire. While giving her notice, she also asked for a 20% raise as fair compensation for her remaining time. This may sound like an outrageous thing to ask for as you’re leaving a job, but she had done the market research, saw she was owed more, and was also in a position of power. She was the one generously helping the company as they replaced her and thinking about their needs instead of just peacing out.
This work ethic will serve you no matter what your job situation is. I know I’m a hard worker, so I’ve left multiple jobs for whatever adventure with absolutely nothing lined up on the other side because I am confident in my ability to find work and make money as soon as I return. I’m also not picky. The goal is to hit the ground running and start making money right away again and then upgrade as better opportunities come along.
Now, this confidence comes from a high-risk tolerance that I naturally have for this situation. My personality is such that I’m optimistic and sure that whatever I need to work out will work out. And it always has. But risk tolerance runs along a spectrum, and it’s perfectly okay to take a little more care in lining up your post-mini retirement life. Just don’t let caution keep you from taking action.
If all this quitting and negotiating makes you nervous, you can also look for seasonal work that will naturally give you time off without the hassle. Self-employment also potentially has the same benefit, but those with their own businesses often struggle even more with the emotional aspect of letting someone else help out (or telling clients they will not be available) while they take time off. But once over that hump of releasing control and giving themselves the space they need, self-employed people are generally surprised to find that their business won’t immediately burn down without them around.
While mini retirements can be life-changing, it's important to acknowledge that not everyone can easily incorporate them into their lives. Financial stability, career flexibility, and personal circumstances all play a significant role in whether someone can take advantage of this approach. But the only thing holding you back is your fear of the unknown, it’s time to discover what life is outside of work. Uncover your purpose and your individuality. Challenge yourself and expand your mind. Be rich in something besides money. Retire now!
