Why I Broke My Lease and Moved To South America

Reducing my cost of living to pursue my curiosities

Richie Crowley

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Photo by Leon Overweel on Unsplash

On January 9th, I learned that I’d soon be out of a job when my employer announced its discontinuation.

On that day, 70% of our team was let go. The remaining 5 employees were selected for a skeleton team with one task: wind down the brand as gracefully as possible. Corporate assisted suicide.

To see your best friends suddenly become unemployed to no fault of their own is agonizing. The only consolation is in knowing how talented each of them is and how lucky their next employers will be to land them.

As for me, I was one of the five. This meant that I was at least employed for a little while longer.

Employment means income, and in America, it also means health care, dental care, and therapy.

The expectation was that the discontinuation would be completed by spring. For personal planning purposes, this meant we should expect to be unemployed and without income and benefits by May 1st, at the latest.

Rather than ask what subject line was best for the day’s scheduled campaign, I was now asking myself what life would look like after May 1st.

Maybe it’s because of the Stoic title my book club is reading, but I realized the answer to this was entirely in my control.

The question became what could my life look like after May 1st?

If you’ve ever been let go or part of a discontinuation, it sucks. You want clarity on what comes next and comfort that you’ll be ok. Both of which, only you can create.

I find comfort in routine and consistency. Perhaps that’s just the Taurus in me. During turbulent times, I coil to seek stability. Part of what allows me to spring out is a renewed understanding of my personal finances. It informs how I can regain comfort. How I can loosen the grip of financial anxiety.

In order to answer what my life could look like after May 1st, I first needed to know how long I could last until I needed a new job and a new paycheck. What was my personal runway in months (Rm)?

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Richie Crowley

Slowly building an audience by publishing original thoughts and ideas only when I have something of quality to say.