Lizette: “We are currently traveling in Coral Bay in Western Australia. It is wonderful here. A bit of snorkeling, fishing, watching the sunset.”
Leon: “We sleep in a tent on the roof of our rented property four-wheel drive.”
Lizette: “We are now 34 and 38 and our goal is to be financially independent in two to three years.”
Leon: “People always think that you need a lot of money for this, but that is not the case. Our goal is an income of 4,000 net per month. We want to achieve that by renting out homes in Indonesia.”
Lizette: “By financial freedom we do not mean that you have so much money that you can retire. Because before you get to that point, it will take a very long time. Then you must at least have half a million in the bank. Our goal is a passive income that we can live on, so that in principle we no longer have to work and can travel all year round.”
Leon: “That is why we are now in the process of purchasing one or more smaller villas on Lombok to rent out for tourism. We are also investigating other options to generate passive income, for example by selling products online or offering courses in our field. Where there is a will, there is a way, we think. We are eager to learn and talk a lot with people we have found online or who we have met during our travels. We meet many people who are traveling for a longer period of time. Then we naturally ask: ‘How do you do that?’ So you hear interesting stories and you learn from them.”
Lizette: “We started living more frugally. First we started keeping track of our expenses in an Excel file. Then it turned out that we were spending 700 euros per month on food. We cut that back to 70 euros per week. We also moved from the Randstad to Friesland. We now live in a cheap house with a low mortgage in Noordwolde near Wolvega. So we have low costs.”
Leon: “As a plasterer, I enjoy making something beautiful for people – walls, ceilings – and seeing that it makes them happy. I especially enjoy working with clay plaster, a natural product. While working I listen to Radio 10 Gold with hits from the 70s and 80s. I also sing along to them. It is nice to be healthy and be able to work.”
Lizette: “I have the travel blog The Salty Beachbums and, as an SEO specialist, help companies with the findability of their website in Google. I do that completely online. I have a number of regular customers and as an entrepreneur I can… digital nomad manage my own time. I am often still busy when we are travelling, especially for my travel blog, but also for my other work – although I try to limit that to one day a week. We have been traveling in Asia and Australia for three months now, we will be back at the beginning of December. Then we will, in principle, stay in the Netherlands for another nine months.”
Lizette Schuurman (38) and Leon van Rijn (34) want for their 40sste be financially free to travel the world full-time. Freedom is very important to them. That is why they are consciously childless and moved from the Randstad to Friesland for peace and low costs. They want as few obligations as possible. He is a plasterer, she has a travel blog and is an SEO specialist.
Together they earn twice the average.
Sleeping with parents during the week
Leon: “I work from Monday morning to Thursday evening, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Then I work hard. On Fridays I do my accounting and make quotes. In total I work about 55 hours a week. With that I earn 50 to 70K a year.”
Lizette: “My work as an online marketer costs me 25 hours a week, my travel blog 8 hours. My blog earns maybe 500 per month, my other work between 2,000 and 3,000 euros net.”
Leon: “My work is still mainly in the Randstad. During the week, from Sunday evening to Thursday, I sleep with my parents in Katwijk. There I have an attic for myself with sports equipment – but I am also building up my business in Friesland, so there is more work coming up in Friesland.”
Lizette: “We are consciously childless. We decided that about 8 years ago. That also helps us to achieve our goal and we are attached to our freedom. It was not a difficult decision. I knew at a young age that I did not want to have children. The two of us are happy and can do whatever we want.”
Leon: “I think exactly the same way. I quite enjoy playing football with my nephews, but if you have children, you have to take them to the field every week. And when they grow up, they enter puberty. I don’t feel like that. Now we have no obligations, we don’t have to buy diapers, we don’t have to take kids to school and we can travel outside the school holidays. That’s a lot cheaper. I don’t hate children, but this is the best choice for us.”
Lizette: “In the Netherlands, everyone actually does the same thing: house, tree, animal. Everything flows along a bit, on a flat line. When you travel you experience highlights, you see beautiful things, and that sometimes makes the contrast with the Netherlands even greater. We may be a bit thrill seekers – always looking for new stimuli and experiences. We are now traveling around. We love Asia and never decide in advance exactly where we are going. It is go with the flow. Nice and impulsive. Maybe we will go to Thailand in the last month.”
Photos Mona van den Berg
Villa with pool on Lombok
Leon: “You can buy something on Lombok from 60K. We are looking at one one bedroom villa with a swimming pool, in a park with other villas. Such a house can easily cost a ton. Of course it is exciting to buy something in a far foreign country. But there are already many Dutch people in Indonesia and they can tell us how it works.”
Lizette: “You rent such a villa through a community and that yields a certain return annually. We have now saved 50K, so we pay the rest through a payment plan. You repay the loan through the rental income. The cleaning costs and maintenance are spread over the entire park. If you have it built yourself, you can do everything yourself, but do you want that? That is difficult to manage. That is why most people hire a management company. You then give up 15 to 20 percent, but I think that’s worth the headaches you’ll save yourself.”
Leon: “We will soon be able to rent out our house in Friesland, but you don’t have to do that all year round. It would be nice if you homebase have. And when I’m at home, I can help plasterer friends with jobs.”
Lizette: “Our goal is that we have the freedom to do what we want. That does not mean that we will stop working, because we are too ambitious for that. But then it will no longer be a chore. The pressure to earn money disappears – and then you start doing other things because it is fun – but we are not going to stop working. I can’t imagine what else you have to do all day.”
What is your last Tikkie sent?
Leon: “That was for dinner in a restaurant on Lombok. We had dinner there with my sister and I had paid for it in advance.”
Weekly shopping or going to the supermarket every day?
“Weekly groceries,” says Leon. “Then you know what you’ll get for the whole week and it will be cheaper. If you go to the supermarket every day, you often take things with you that you don’t need. We want to spend 70 euros a week. I always go to the Jumbo, which is opposite us, a 1-minute walk away. There you can use a scanner to keep track of the amount of groceries you have while shopping. This way we ensure that we stay around that 70 euros.”
What’s your last biggest expense?
Lizette: “I just bought a camera for 2,500 euros. That is a major expense, but I think about it carefully in advance. Then I think: ‘Do I really want it, what will it get me, do I use it often?’ I don’t buy something that is still in the closet after two years. And I am very happy with my new camera.”
Second-hand or rather new?
Lizette: “We prefer to buy second-hand furniture, and if possible we borrow something instead of buying it. For example, if the lawn needs to be mowed, we borrow a lawn mower from the neighbor – so we try to be creative so that we don’t have to buy everything.”
What was really a bad buy?
Leon: “Our car, an Opel Astra – it is always broken. It dates from 2014 – we bought it in 2020.”
How often do you clean the house?
“We are very clean,” says Lizette. “It is also very clear: we have minimal furnishings, without kids or pets. And we clean twice a week.”
Who decides what you will eat?
“I do most of the cooking,” says Lizette. “I mix everything together – and it tastes good too.”
What do you feel guilty about spending money on?
“I can’t think of anything,” said Lizette. “Everything is conscious and with intention.”
What are you saving for?
Lizette: “We are saving for our travels and for a house in Indonesia.”
Best tip for household or finances?
“Keep a housekeeping book,” says Lizette. “Many people don’t even know how much they spend on subscriptions, clothing and so on. A household budget makes you aware of what you spend and where you can save.”
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