Welcome to my new series called Studio Notes. I had the idea this morning when I woke up to document how my week went so I can keep an account of my progress.

I hadn't officially made the announcement that I plan to retire at 55 that's in two years. Actually a year and a half at this point and I wanted to document that journey here on the blog.

Let me explain my version of retirement. I don't have any money saved for retirement. What I have in my 401k would last me about a month. I have over $130k in student loan debt and about $8k in credit card debt. I'm not a home owner and I don't have a car payment. I know you're probably thinking how in the world can you retire with all of that debt and no nest egg? Here's how...

I took a long hard look at my future and not going to lie it seemed bleak. I was so discouraged at the thought of having to work for someone for the rest of my life. I was hard wired to believe I needed to get a "good job" save for retirement, own a home and live a nice life. 

All while believing that a creative or an artist was what I truly desired to be, but believed that starving artist trope so I never ventured down that path. The ironic thing is my ENTIRE adult working life I've been under employed. I have a bachelor's and an associates degrees, yet I work at a call center. 

Don't get me wrong there is absolutely nothing wrong with working at a call center but that wasn't the path I wanted for myself. 

I looked back at my life and saw a girl who was stifled to believe that her creativity would amount to nothing. A girl whose creative ideas flowed like water falling from Niagara Falls. Decades I've perpetuated that belief that all my gifts didn't matter. Working for companies and people who didn't value my gifts. Feeling like a failure most days because I wanted more with my life and didn't want how my life was playing out. 

One day I thought to myself, wouldn't it be ironic if I lived life as a creative and DIDN'T starve but actually THRIVED? That's when I vowed to myself that moving forward I would live the 2nd half of my life the way I wanted.

That was when the idea came to me to "retire" at 55. Retirement to me looked like having to work but now I made the decision to work on my own terms and that means for myself!

Yes, I'm retiring from working for someone else! I am going to lean in to my strengths and capitalize off of it. Why not live a life that I can enjoy while making money? So that's what I'm going to do!

Studio Notes will be the documentation of my journey to retiring at 55! I'm so glad that you're here on the journey with me!