My OE Journey

As the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years pass, OE has become routine to my every day life. The total hours I work per week continues to decrease as I become more efficient at my 2 Js. I am contemplating adding J3. A great opportunity has come my desk where I could add a third remote J and I believe after the first 3-6mo transitional period, I could my total hours around 45 per week.

As I approach 2 years OEing, I feel this sense of achievement that I had sought but never felt since entering corporate America in 2010. I feel a greater sense of accomplishment from OE than I did graduating from high school, college and attaining my CPA. I think it is because there has been a tangible benefit that I can feel and see. I can see our savings account, investment accounts, 529 accounts, and 401K plans rise at a pace that I was resigning to the fact would never happen up until 3 years ago. I was about 10-13 years into my career and working under the assumption that I will need to work until I’m at least 65 but more likely until 70-75. Every year I am able to OE at 2 Js, I conservatively believe that will allow me to retire about 1 year earlier when you factor investing those dollars today for a few decades down the road with the fact those last few years in your career are usually your highest income earning years in my profession. More than though, my current life is light years better today than it was pre OE. I try not to future trip too much and constantly remind myself I need to focus on today. I agree that it is important to plan for the future but I think it’s equally as important to enjoy today. I don’t want to have regrets down the road that all I did was work, saved and invested every dime so I could retire at the earliest possible age. I believe your 30-40s are prime years of your life and a lot of us in that age group have children. Being able to travel with your family on amazing vacations and really be able to enjoy these years without any financial concerns is an amazing feeling I honestly didn’t expect until I OEed.

Simultaneously, I feel this sense of concern of getting caught. I have mostly followed the OE rules and regulations, but I’m not gonna lie, I have told a few people that are very close to me. If I were to ever get caught, i honestly don’t believe that would be the reason. I believe the biggest risk for myself is someone at J1 finding out that I work at J2 for reasons other than them finding out though one my close friends or family. If I add this J3, it would increase that risk even more even though I made sure J3 is a company that is Headquartered in a different state to reduce that risk.

I complete all my tasks and responsibilities at both my Js in a timely manner and at a high level of quality. These company’s are for profit company’s that care about one thing. PROFITS. If I do my small part in helping them towards that goal, I don’t see the harm. I understand it won’t play out that way if caught but I think folks underestimate how much quicker we complete tasks today than 20 years ago. If company’s want to adapt and decrease head counts, that is their decision. For the time being, they want me to complete these tasks timely and accurately and that’s what I do for them. There probably will be a day where they do decrease those headcount’s as they begin to understand that they don’t need as many people employed as they did a decade or two ago. Until that time, I plan on capitalizing as much as humanely possible because the most important thing to me is providing a fruitful life to my family and setting my kids up to be more successful than me.