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Hi, would love to get everyone's thoughts on the below. My wife and are considering moving to Hawaii for 12-18 months for what essentially amounts to an extended career break. We are both early 30s and work in stressful industries based on the East Coast. No children. We've come to a place in our lives where an extended break is very attractive based on many reasons. We are willing to leave our respective careers with the plan to pick back up in the next year or two. Financially, our situation would allow this. We are by no means rich or loaded, but smart financial decisions over the last 10yrs or so have enabled us to seriously consider something like this. We are young, educated and will most certainly return to the professional ranks to recoup the cost required. This is not a long term plan by any means.
We've visited Hawaii and absolutely love it! We could absolutely see ourselves choosing the BI and enjoying all it has to offer.
I've researched and read through lots of these forums. They are very helpful for dreamers and mainlanders like us. The negative aspects about life in Hawaii are taken very seriously and we realize it's not all sun and fun. There are real life aspects than can be challenging.
However, many of those aspects really impact long term plans and people who truly attempt a move for the long haul. I'm wondering how much they will play are part in our life? Our plans would be to find a decent rental in the Kona/North Kona area for 12-18 months. We would definitely work (or attempt to find work) doing something productive. Employment could be wide ranging, lots of options to provide some type of income stream. However not picky or require a professional job or anything remotely lucrative. Infact, something with low stress/responsibility would be preferred (that's thew hole driver behind this). Stocking shelves at Target could work for example.
Please respond with challenges you foresee around employment and housing or anything else. Other impacts around cost of living, bugs, schools, etc we are not that worried about. These are long term issues and/or aspects that are not applicable to us. We aren't too worried about the whole foreigner topic and not being accepted. We aren't really looking to develop a deep social network or to immerse ourselves into the local community. Again, plan is to return to the mainland within 1 1/2 years. While that topic is somewhat concerning, it’s nothing major to us. We understand our choice might not be too welcomed and would keep much to ourselves.
We want to enjoy the outdoors and ocean on our terms and don’t believe you have to wait until retirement to do so.
Getting a long-term rental without either of you already having a job.
Finding employment is a twofold challenge: 1) Employers probably won't be interested in people who are clearly overqualified (stocking shelves at Target for instance) because the attention span of those employees don't generally last very long (and it likely wouldn't be full-time positions anyway). 2) Finding work for which you are qualified is challenging if you a temporary resident (why spend money to ramp you up only to see you leave).
And when you get back - don't underestimate a lot of employers will find this 12-18 month flakey and may not be interested in hiring you.
Understood. I would imagine obtaining a rental would be tough. I don't think I'd rent to someone fresh in town with nothing stable. Hopefully prepaying rent for several months would help this, which we are prepared to do.
Not really worried about the rehiring when back. We both have extensive working networks and could pick back up fairly quickly upon returning.
Understood. I would imagine obtaining a rental would be tough. I don't think I'd rent to someone fresh in town with nothing stable. Hopefully prepaying rent for several months would help this, which we are prepared to do.
It is illegal to prepay rent for several months in advance in Hawaii.
They can collect the first month rent - security deposit up to the first months rent - and pet deposit.
They will not like you. Very close group out there. Happy to see ya if you are a short term tourist with $$$. Also I suggest you look at some of the data posted by Money, Met Life, ETC. Their data suggests that someone who leaves work temporarily to care for a loved one will see an average lifetime setback of $308,880. So double that for the two of you as it appears you both are working. True as you say many seniors discover their health not up to their bucket list but do the math.
So, if you are able to take a break financially, and don't need a good, professional job, then why not just do it? I assume from your post that you have enough income to tide you over while you find housing and employment. In fact, right now would be a great time to come because the larger stores (Target, etc.) are hiring help for the holidays. If you did that, then maybe you would make some contacts that could lead to other work once the holidays are over. Just know for a lot of those kinds of jobs it is all about who you know.
Check rentals on Craigslist and jobs in papers like West Hawaii Today. Don't rent anything sight unseen and expect that it will take you some time to find jobs once you are here. At least looking ahead of time will give you an idea of what's out there.
I'm going to take another tack and suggest that you take counsel from the ancient and venerable practice of sabbatical leaves to use your break to refresh and renew your life, rather than just slacking off for all that time.
Everybody is different, but from a long observation of others dealing with long breaks, I'll just say that in my opinion is that after about 3 months of doing nothing you'll have done about as much nothing as anyone ever really needs to do all at one time, and like a muscle unused for that long, any additional time is just going to make you flabby and weak and kind of useless.
I'd use the time instead to build strength in some new area, learn a new skill, generate a new habit, master something, or be of service to others. Create something. Reconsider everything. Use your time away to resharpen your edge, not dull it. Don't kill time, but enliven it!
As for your career afterwords, if you do your sabbatical right you might not ever go back to that career that has you so stressed out now that you seek relief.
Good to know whtviper1, so that won't work on the negotiations.
mortpes-seems that is the general idea on the local community. We are naturally friendly and engaging people, wife is in sales and creates friendships very easily. However I also understand certain stereotypes exist, anywhere you go and sometimes that's just the way it is and you can't change it. We would do our best to befriend folks we meet with the understanding our situation might not agree with everyone.
Your example on $$$ makes sense. That is the center of this idea. What is it worth to someone to pursue an idea like this? Is it worth taking time off professional to grow and learn in a completely different way? Is it worth $308,880 over a lifetime to live out a dream? While that is certainly a considerable amount of money, what does it really mean to someone my age (34) with 30+ years of career upcoming? Will I look back in 30, 40, 50 years and regret living in Hawaii in my mid 30's and gaining that life experience? I guess these are things individually you have to figure out if are important. Will I be able to snorkel and scuba in some of the most incredible waters in the world when I'm 70? Will I be able to horseback ride through the Waipio Valley when I'm retired? Probably not. The option to do something like this is only now, before we have kids.
You can get an idea of how we are looking at this and some of the inspiration.
Dreaming of Hawaii-agreed. Why not? We have enough cash put back to technically not work at all and be fine. We don't need much related to housing and the essentials. Now that is definitely not the wise choice and wouldn't go about it that way. But if landing some type of employment took longer than expected, it wouldn't be catastrophic. The idea would be to work and use savings to cover shortfalls each month if necessary. We've already noticed Macy's is hiring like crazy for their makeup counter. My wife ran a Macy's makeup counter during college, she grew it to the most profitable counter in the US. This is to say there are options related to jobs.
Re OpenD-exactly! Your comments are more inline to how we look at this. Idea is to refresh and renew, experience things never before, gain a new perspective on life and come back ready to hit the career hard again. This would be a short term hiatus and the last thing we'd want to do is to jeopardize our value in the workplace (even more so than missing a year in our fields). Initially we wanted to obtain jobs similar to what we do now. Make a real contribution to the local economy. There are positions currently posted near Kona which fit this. However, after finding this forum and now aware of the hardships mainlanders have landing jobs, the job scope has widened considerably. It seems like the focus should be just finding anything acceptable at first until we understand more the interworking's of the local culture.
We would absolutely want to volunteer, participate in a local church and give back. Not just show up, enjoy the natural wonders, take what we want from the land and leave. That sounds awful. We'd want to assimilate the best we could, it just seems like those options are much more difficult given our "foreigner" status.
We would absolutely want to volunteer, participate in a local church and give back. Not just show up, enjoy the natural wonders, take what we want from the land and leave. That sounds awful. We'd want to assimilate the best we could, it just seems like those options are much more difficult given our "foreigner" status.
That's EXACTLY how we live our retired life here on the Big Island. We live in a very rural area, where there are no jobs so you have to be either retired, independently wealthy, or willing to drive an hour and a half to Kona for work. We are part of a volunteer organization that does many good things in the community. Our members are a mixture of locals and transplants like us. A lot of my friends participate in the local churches; you can do as little or as much as you like. We also work in a community garden, where we all share in the work and the harvest, and we work once a month in the Volcanoes National Park planting new trees or removing invasive ones. And I take hula classes twice a week.
BTW, I'm almost 70 and I can tell you that it is NOT too old to horseback ride in the Waipio Valley or snorkle or scuba or go deep sea fishing or surf.
Re OpenD-exactly! Your comments are more inline to how we look at this. Idea is to refresh and renew, experience things never before, gain a new perspective on life and come back ready to hit the career hard again. This would be a short term hiatus and the last thing we'd want to do is to jeopardize our value in the workplace (even more so than missing a year in our fields). Initially we wanted to obtain jobs similar to what we do now. Make a real contribution to the local economy. There are positions currently posted near Kona which fit this. However, after finding this forum and now aware of the hardships mainlanders have landing jobs, the job scope has widened considerably. It seems like the focus should be just finding anything acceptable at first until we understand more the interworking's of the local culture.
We would absolutely want to volunteer, participate in a local church and give back. Not just show up, enjoy the natural wonders, take what we want from the land and leave. That sounds awful. We'd want to assimilate the best we could, it just seems like those options are much more difficult given our "foreigner" status.
OK, glad we could connect and communicate a little.
Here's something specific for you to embrace. Look for that which is unique and extraordinary, and throw yourself into it. Don't waste your time stocking shelves at Target... that's ordinary, and you could do it anywhere and have pretty much the same experience. But where else but the Big Island are you going to have the chance to pick organic coffee beans, or learn ukulele from a master or pound kalo (taro) into poi or learn Hawaiian from a native speaker or become a docent at a world class astronomical observatory or be an opihi picker or work with new renewable energy technology, to name just a few. Take the maximum advantage of what you will find here and nowhere else.
And remember, each day is precious, and life is unpredictable. Although I'm a revered kapuna in my community, an elder who has lived a very wide and varied and full life, I just had the difficult new experience of counseling a younger friend who is working to get through the totally unexpected sudden death of her 42 year old husband. A former Marine, a survival course leader, he was as fit and healthy and full of life as one could ever wish for. And yet, without any warning at all, quietly, at home, an aneurysm in his brain broke open and he was gone in just moments. As we talked, what gave her the most comfort was knowing that he loved her unconditionally, and that he had literally lived each day as if it were his last, so he had lived as fully as he could. Few people live that well.
As a zen master might put it, he lived as though his hair were on fire, even when he was in quiet meditation. I recommend that approach, that urgency. We are all given just one wild and precious life, so don't waste it on irrelevant things.
OpenD
Last edited by OpenD; 11-06-2014 at 07:42 PM..
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