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Over the past 9 months, we’ve experienced what it’s like to be living a nomadic lifestyle and then come ‘home’ again to a more settled existence.

Call it reverse lifestyle design if you will but it’s certainly been a unique experience – and one that most nomads and location independent professionals will likely experience at some point in their lives.

With all the excitement of being pregnant, giving birth and coping with a newborn, coming ‘home’ to the UK was a welcome relief (something I didn’t expect myself to feel. Ever) but now we’re starting to get itchy feet again and are seriously planning our first trip as location independent parents, with the babe in tow.

Although much of the advice you’ll read about nomadism, location independence and lifestyle design is focused on the tips, tricks, resources & the mindset you need to become nomadic, being location independent isn’t just about the permanent travelling lifestyle – it’s about having the freedom to choose where, when and how you work and live.

And we’ve learned plenty of things whilst on the road which we’ve found just as beneficial when settled in one place…

Budgets

I regret very few things in my life so far and of the three that I can think of, two of them are too personal to share here. The one I can share however, is that I truly do regret spending so much money as a corporate rat-racer. I can’t even begin to think what I did with the ridiculous salary I earned as a 25 year old – often twice as much as most of my peers.

All I know is that I left the rat race with very little of it still sitting in my bank. “If only…” is not a phrase you’ll catch me using often but if only I’d saved half that salary, we’d be flying first class everywhere.

Since becoming location independent, we set a weekly food budget in each new destination we visit. This is largely to avoid any careless mishaps or miscalculations with foreign currency but also so we can compare the cost of living in the various places we visit (and report back on them here!).

We’ve continued doing this since being back in the UK this time and what’s eye-opening are the frivolities you purchase without a thought when you have a home base…bits & bobs for the house, clothes, gadgets and stuff that you don’t need. Setting and attempting to stick to a budget, at least gives you pause for thought with every purchase.

Lesson learned: If you’re trying to become location independent, money (or not enough of it) is quite possibly a sticking point for you. Get into good habits right now and set & stick to a budget, if you can. At the very least, always have a clear idea of where your money goes each week and where, if necessary, you can make savings.

De-cluttering

When you need to pack everything you own into a 60 litre bag and cart it with you to your next destination, it’s much easier not to purchase superfluous things you see whenever you walk into a shop with pretty things. When you’re on the road, a declutter before you leave each destination is almost a necessity so that everything fits back into your bag.

Since we’ve been back in the UK, we’ve de-cluttered the house three times: twice before the baby and once since the baby was born. No doubt we’ll have another big clear-out before we head off on our first trip again.

This is a great practice to get into, whether you’re nomadic or not, for several reasons:

• It can make you money if you sell your stuff on ebay
• It means you’ll have less work to do the next time you decide to pack up & head off
• It feels great to streamline your stuff

Lesson learned: Get into the habit of clearing out your life regularly; it’s not only great to create physical space, it also helps create mental space and keeps you and your life streamlined and agile.

“I Want That”

Tied in to both the first and second points, since becoming location independent we’ve developed a strong aversion to buying stuff for the sake of it – we’ve pretty much conquered the “I want that” mentality although take me into a gadget shop and it might surface quite quickly again!

We’ve also applied this to having our baby – instead of spending a small fortune buying all equipment known to man-kind before she was born, we opted instead to buy the bare minimum to wait & see what we really needed once she was here.

We’ve caught ourselves falling into the trap of buying stuff for the sake of it a couple of times – and each time, we’ve ended up regretting the purchase a few days later.

Lesson learned: Adopt the habit of questioning yourself whenever you make a purchase. Ask yourself whether it’s really vital that you have whatever it is you want and whether it’s going to make life easier or it’s just something you want for the sake of it. Is it an asset or a liability?

No Mindless TV

More recently, watching almost zero TV has had more to do with our lives being based around a newborn’s schedule than anything else but when we’re overseas we rarely watch TV. We may watch some local programmes to get a flavour for the culture and vibe of a place and we sometimes watch the local news & weather.

Compare this to the average Brit or American who probably spends a good deal of their non-working time watching TV and indeed our own habits before we left the UK. I’m not going to sit on my soapbox and rubbish anyone who enjoys watching TV but it’s more a case of questioning where you spend your time – particularly if you’re currently unhappy with your lot in life.

Lesson learned: TV can be a great way to switch off but there are far more productive and valuable things you can be doing with your time than mindless goggle-boxing. Action rather than inaction is the only thing that’s going to get you to where you want to be. If you don’t do it for yourself, no-one else will.

Business Meetings

One habit we developed whilst on the road was to schedule regular business meetings with ourselves. This helped to set some sort of schedule to our week and kept us focused on the business side of things with all the distractions that our new surroundings often brought.

We both have fun projects to work on, so it never really feels like work – but that doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously and to do that requires us to maintain focus on our strategies and regularly review what’s been happening.

As many work-from-home entrepreneurs will recognise, sometimes it’s easier to do things like this when you’re not actually at home; it means you set & stick to a scheduled time and don’t let it just fall by the wayside as something that can wait.

Lesson learned: Setting regular review meetings of your business is a valuable practice to adopt; not only does it provide you with a schedule to stick to, it gives you a regular opportunity to review what’s been working and what’s not, so you can adjust your approach accordingly.

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