Climbing 14,000+ ft. peaks seems scary. It can be. Sometimes it means stepping onward and upward in spite of that fear. More often, it’s exhilarating and exciting and even breathtaking–figuratively, yes, but often hard work that leaves you breathless.
Something far scarier for us (Chris and Debbie) was taking chances with our lives–putting conventions and expectations aside and stepping toward our curiosity about living a less conventional life. We had built a life that was safe and secure, with steady paychecks, pensions, 401(k)s, two amazing daughters, two dogs–you know, the whole white-picket-fence type of life. This lifestyle allowed us to visit the mountains or the beach on weekends or our one-week(ish), work-granted vacation every year.
Still, our hearts and souls called for something more. We began to question the necessity of it all. And even more, the plausibility of putting off our dreams–the things we genuinely aspired to do, the places we yearned to see, and all the beauty we desired to create–until traditional retirement. The thought of putting that off left us feeling hollow and incomplete.
The absolute scariest thing that we have done–and continue to do–is to step toward our inquisitiveness and continue to define and build our dream life–our bucket-list life–TODAY, not someday.
The very scaffolding of constructing our dream life is the desire to help others. To do this, we built GoBucketYourself.
This is our platform to help Y -O-U design the life of your dreams. We’re inspired to help individuals, couples, and families overcome fear, adjust their mindset, handle their finances, and plan adventures in a way that allows you to quit putting your dreams on a waiting list and live your bucket-list life today.
Have you ever found yourself asking these questions?
- Why do I feel like life is passing me by?
- I have a good job and a good life, why do I still feel like I’m missing something?
- How can I get myself out of this rut?
- What is it that I was put on this earth to do?
- When I’m lying on my death bed, will I look back and regret the hard things I didn’t do, the adventures I didn’t take, the life I didn’t live?
...Or telling yourself this?
- I don’t have enough money to do the things I really want.
- I don’t have enough time to do what I really want to do.
- People with kids can’t do this.
- It’s too late for me to change my life/lifestyle or do something different.
Yes? You're in the right place!
Some frequently asked questions:
In our 30’s, while exploring some rabbit-hole of a Google search, we discovered that other people were out there living their intentional lives with what seemed like an abundance of free time to travel, explore, create, and raise their children. We landed upon the Financial Independence & “Retire” Early community.
It’s a community of people who set out to build freedom in their lives by having the finances to passively pay the bills while they work part-time jobs, side jobs that don’t particularly pay well, volunteer, relax, explore, travel, and so many other things.
This is the situation for us–as of 2020 and age 40(for both of us), we’ve set aside our typical careers and have a combination of passive income from investments(Real Estate), a side hustle for Deb(approx. 5 weeks per year), and perhaps one day GoBucketYourself will earn us money.
No longer having the 40-hour a week scheduleand having the freedom of homeschooling/flex-schooling, we’re able to do quite a bit of traveling and adventuring. We’re blessed to have this and want to help others–who may be interested–to find the same!
Travel with our kids is especially important to us.
We homeschool our youngest daughter and our oldest has recently returned to public school. While we’re more limited to the schedule of a typical school, we’re also doing “flex-schooling”, where we’ll pull her out of school for periods of time in order to travel, learn, and explore in other ways outside of the traditional classroom.
We also use a combination of travel rewards–using things like rewards miles and discounts–along with a flexible schedule to get flights and accommodations for extreme discounts or even free.
Example: A 2020 trip for the 4 for us to Puerto Vallarta, MX for 17 days cost us about $200.00 total for flights and $700 in accommodations/Airbnbs. Some folks might spend $2,800 just in round-trip airfare to Hawaii.
By stretching the value of our dollars, we’re able to do quite a bit with a fairly modest travel budget
– Learning to surf in Ayampe, Ecuador (Claire and Deb)
– Climbing Pico de Orizaba in Mexico (Chris)
– Hiking the Quilitoa Loop in Ecuador (All of us)
– Backpacking into the Grand Canyon for 3 days and 2 nights as a family (All of us + Chris’ dad)
– Exploring the Inside Passage of Alaska by cruise ship (Deb, Chris, Claire)
– Hitting the slopes on epic powder days
Our Values:
- Overcome Fear
- Grow Your Mindset
- Eliminate Obstacles
- Live Adventurously
