“Thank God it’s Thursday!” is what Burlington, VT, dentist Wendy Everhart is typically thinking around 5 p.m. on Thursdays. That’s when she finishes her condensed three-day workweek and starts her active four-day weekend.
Wendy Everhart
Depending on the season, her days off might include a three- or five-hour hike one day and a cross-country ski the next day. Or she might attend a 90-minute hot yoga class or an hour-long spin class, or take an extended bike ride in Vermont’s picturesque Champlain Valley or on the Champlain Islands, where she recently moved.
It might sound like a lot, but to Everhart, it’s all about having fun and living a healthy lifestyle.
“These activities are my enjoyment,” she says. “A day never passes that I don’t do something––go to the gym, practice yoga or do something that’s physical and takes care of my body. I couldn’t do my trips otherwise.”
Outdoor Adventures
The trips to which Everhart refers include a recent three-day, 34-mile hike on Iceland’s Laugavegur Trail through ice caves, bright green valleys, black volcanic deserts and rainbow-colored hills. And that outing was tame compared with last year’s epic 211-mile hike on the John Muir Trail in California, which she and a friend accomplished in 13 days.
“That was pretty arduous,” she says. “We had 40-pound backpacks and carried all our own food. And it was really hot, so we had to bring extra water, which was very heavy. There were forest fires all around us. It was hard, but it was an incredible accomplishment.”
Near the end of the 13-day hike, they summited 14,494-foot Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States—a grueling 10.7-mile hike that gains more than 6,000 vertical feet. And that might not have been Everhart’s most arduous adventure. She says it’s a toss-up between the Muir Trail hike and a five-day, 100-mile ocean kayaking trip off the coast of Georgia in the late 1990s.
When not out in nature, at the gym or in her dental office, Everhart might be revisiting an old love of hers: pottery. “I did pottery before college, revisited it in my 20s and now I’m revisiting it again. It’s physical, it’s satisfying and I’m good at it. And I invested money to make a studio in my house so I can do it here.”
Slowing Down
Believe it or not, Everhart is slowing down. She no longer cycles 100 miles at a time, which she used to do fairly frequently. “Now, I’ll do a 20-mile ride and then go swimming,” she says, sitting in the sunroom of her new home overlooking Lake Champlain.
“I used to go to the gym and then climb a mountain,” she recalls. “But I don’t do that anymore. I’ve given myself the gift of not having to push myself that hard. Buying this house plays into that. I’m here, so I’m not going to run into town to go to the gym. I’m purposely slowing down. I think I need to do that.”
On the surface, slowing down also would include the change she made in her dental practice four years ago—cutting back from a four-day workweek to three. It was easy to make the change and it made sense, she says, as she shares her practice with another dentist. At least one of them is there five days a week.
“It was a no-brainer,” Everhart says. “And the big bonus is that I get a four-day weekend every week.”
However, the new schedule isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Everhart says she does the same amount of work in three days that she used to do in four, so while her income has stayed the same, the time is more compressed and productive. “Those three days are very stressful, so I’m worn out by the time Thursday ends.”
Saving All the Way
Everhart is 63, has been divorced for many years and has a decent nest egg—even after putting three children through private college at full price. Still, she doesn’t expect to retire for another few years. “It’s hard to know how much savings is enough,” she says. “I could keep up my current work routine for another five years as long as my health is good.” Meanwhile, just as she has throughout her 38 years as a dentist, Everhart continues to save in her retirement plan, “contributing the absolute maximum, as I always have.”
“I’ve always lived within my means,” she says. “I’ve never had an outstanding credit card bill. I worked my way through college and ate rice and beans while I was in dental school. When I started my practice, I had one chair and one employee and took out a modest loan from the SBA. Now I have five operators and three hygienists working.”
And who can argue with the job flexibility she now enjoys? “My job allows me to take time off whenever I need to for personal reasons,” she says. “I do enjoy working for myself, and I feel very fortunate.”
Based in Shelburne, VT, Allan Kunigis has written about personal finance for more than two decades.
Inset photo courtesy of Wendy Everhart.
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