When Sally Castle woke up on her 40th birthday, she felt a little blue about being single and having no children. But not for long. She soon realised that her solo status gave her the freedom to live life differently.
Now instead of full-time work, she takes on fixed-term contracts and project-based work via her business Shore Strategic Consulting and is aiming to spend three months of the year sailing the high seas.
"I was thinking I could work until I'm 65 and buy a yacht and sail the world when I'm older and not necessarily as fit," she says. But she also knows life can be short. "My mother passed away when she was 64 and it just got me thinking in a different way."
The 41-year-old Sydneysider recently spent seven weeks sailing from the Caribbean islands across the Panama Canal to the Galapagos Islands. To help make it happen she rents out her home while she's away and has a well-established pattern of dividing her pay into five "buckets" including a "rainy day" fund and an "adventure" fund to ensure all her regular expenses and contingencies are covered.
Her other secret: taking advantage of "other people's yachts" by volunteer crewing. "Most people assume that I'm spending $10,000 to $15,000 every time I go sailing but I'm not."
While plenty of people are adopting the digital nomad lifestyle, of working remotely while you travel, others like Castle are tailoring their life so they work only part of the year.
Apart from loving the freedom of sailing, Castle says the time has other benefits: "I'm working in an entrepreneurial space and that takes creativity and creativity takes space and it takes a full soul and a full battery so I've found going sailing and reflecting and joining the dots and being a bit playful really informs the work."
Lacey Filipich, director of Money School, is another fan of working part of the year. Inspired by the book, The Four Hour Work Week, she and her husband Adam enjoyed a series of "mini retirements" before starting a family in 2013. For three years they worked for six months during winter and then enjoyed rest and relaxation in Margaret River for the other six months.
One of her tips for those with similar ambitions is to think about how their work is structured. "If it's a long-term plan to work part of the year, the type of work you choose and the organisations you work for is important," she says.
Leaving her job as a full-time mining superintendent helped make it work for them. "I took contract work and negotiated a great daily rate and never took a job for longer than six months." Her husband who was in full-time employment managed to negotiate a combination of paid and unpaid leave.
They also found mini-retirements meant lower expenses. "It turns out that mini-retirements are much cheaper than normal living especially if you want to move away from capital cities for that period," Filipich says. They halved their rent and improved their living standards by moving to Margaret River and found they spent less money on "conveniences" when they had more time.
Connie Munoz, 29, considers herself fortunate to have an employer who is happy to support her love of travel. For the past five years she has worked for a PR agency for seven months of the year, sometimes adding after-hours nannying to her work life to boost her savings. Then she takes five months off to travel. "My employer has allowed me to leave and when I come back I work for them. So we've been very loyal to each other for five years."
She and her partner generally spend some time in Indonesia where the cost of living is low and often stay with family or friends in other places they visit in Europe, Japan and New York.
When they return to Australia, Munoz lives with her mother, paying her board, electricity and internet and keeping other expenses simple such as a $30-a-month prepaid mobile.
"I don't go out on the weekends. I don't buy many clothes so it all starts to add up."
This year she's mixing it up, staying put instead of jetting off so she can start a business that allows her to work and travel long-term.
The Filipich family, now with two children, haven't lost their love of the mini-retirement. They plan to spend three to four months of 2018 in Italy. "We've got over a year of living costs in the bank now and we will keep adding to that over the next nine months so we'll have a healthy buffer if we decide we'd like to extend our stay," she says. They may try and organise a house swap or rent a place in Italy for the entire time and do day trips from their home base.
Assuming their house is rented while they are away, she estimates they will need about $30,000 for their four-month mini-retirement, an amount that would cover plane tickets; renting an Italian house; hiring or buying a cheap car and about $1000 a week for "food, fun and exploring". "That $1000 a week might be excessive but I'd rather have lots of fat so I can have fun," she says.
Here are their tips for making it work:
Set a goal
Castle's advice: "Be brave, bold and adventurous but make sure you've got your bases covered." She has "switch-off points". "I set myself goals and if I haven't met that goal by then then I might need to reconsider and rethink."
Munoz and her partner aim to save about $20,000 each to give them flexibility while they travel and money when they return to Australia.
Filipich suggests saving four to six months of living costs if you're planning a three-month mini-retirement.
Be conscious of overheads
Avoid long leases and lock-in contracts in the run-up to a mini-retirement, Filipich suggests. Also, think twice before buying big-ticket items such as furniture that might bump up storage costs.
"Whittle down your belongings to make storage less expensive."
Stay disciplined when you're away
"Track and understand what you're spending because sometimes it's easy not to notice [spending] when you're having a great time," Castle says.
Look for alternatives
"Decide what you want to do and then assume you don't have any money and figure out how you do it anyway," Castle says.