I’m sensing a theme on this blog: and it’s laziness 🙂 . I’ve written several posts on the subject at this point, including:
- How Being Lazy Helped Me Retire At 30
- Why I’m An Unproductivity Advocate
- Why Rest Is The Key To Creativity
I talk about it a lot because I believe it’s an important topic in today’s productivity porn saturated world. Your output is not your worth. That’s basically American propaganda (check out the awesome book Laziness Does Not Exist if you want a whole history of how that came to be).
So in that same vein, today I wanted to reflect on one of the reasons I’m in my current, sweet financial position: my laziness 🙂 . When making large financial decisions, I’ve always liked to take a step back, take emotion out of it and visualize what it would be like to own that large item. Am I happier? Does it add more things to my to do list? Do the pros outweigh the cons?
So let’s get into a few things I do not want to buy and how my laziness saved me from some bad (for me) financial decisions:
Houses
The big one! I think this is particularly important now that we’re in a housing boom and a sellers market with houses routinely being sold for $100,000-$300,000 over asking price in Seattle for example. A real eye opener for me on this subject were the posts of the early retirees over at Millennial Revolution, such as Why Houses Are A Scam. and Million Dollar House? Or Million Dollar Prison.
Their insightful words combined with this amazing NY Times calculator “Is It Better To Rent Or Buy” opened my eyes to the downsides of owning a home. In American society it’s talked about as a given when it really shouldn’t be. We seem to look at monthly mortgage payments and think that’s it when really “rent is the ceiling and a mortgage is the floor” of what you will pay.
In the past when someone suggested I should buy a home, I just kept thinking about the unexpected maintenance that could pop up at any moment, the lawn care I’m now responsible for and how a house would lock me into a specific city, state and country indefinitely. I didn’t want that kind of shackle around my foot. If I had that, I wouldn’t have been able to as easily move across the country and have a better standard of living for less.
Instead of exploring a new city, my weekends could have been filled with calling contractors and trying to get a broken item fixed or replaced. Unlike with a rental, you have to pay for it AND organize it. That’s not how I imagined using my weekends.
And on top of that added work, in Seattle even before the pandemic construction workers were so booked up that my friends were making appointments a year in advance. I don’t want to deal with any of that. If something breaks, I want to text someone, know it will be fixed promptly and not have to worry about it. Laziness for the win 🙂 .
For similar reasons, I’ve never had an interest in landlording. That decision was a result of the many horror stories my Mom has told me about her tenants over the years compounded with my friends in the finance world sharing their horror stories, such as Down With The Dingle House by Gwen at Fiery Millennials.
So my laziness saved me from one of the biggest purchases people make in their lifetime. Instead, I’ve rented lovely apartments and put all the fees, maintenance costs and mortgage interest I would have paid, into the stock market so it was working for me.
POSSIBLE SAVINGS: $118,377
Cars
Similar to houses, it seems like we do not look at the full financial picture of owning a car. We talk about a monthly payment, but once again that’s just scratching the surface. On top of the actual car payment, you have to pay for gas, insurance, maintenance and parking.
And while living in NYC, I learned that it’s not just the parking spot (some of which cost almost as much as some of my Manhattan rents) that you have to deal with, but also weird ass parking laws. For example, my friends had to go move their cars to the other side of the street several times a week. I understand they want to clean the street, but this seems like a bit of a silly solution.
Speaking of weird ways a car can take up brain space, parking can add more stress because of the possibility of someone dinging your car, especially fancy ones. Carl from 1500 days talks here about how that concern was one of the reasons he sold his fancy car that he bought 2 years before.
All of these are things I don’t want to have to deal with 🙂 . If I want to go somewhere, I (ideally) walk because I love it, take public transit (outside of a pandemic), hop in a Lyft or Uber or at times rent a car. I don’t have to deal with all the costs or worries of owning my own metal cage of destruction and can instead use them as needed and in whatever capacity fits my needs at the time.
Based on the fact that cars cost the average person $11,472 a year and my walking legs are free, I can imagine a large portion of that amount went straight into my investments. More money and free fitness – what’s not to love 😉 ?
POSSIBLE SAVINGS: $103,248
Pets
Now, unlike the above, this is something you can’t really ‘rent’ – though I guess fostering and cat/dog sitting might come close 🙂 . I had dogs growing up and while they were loving and cute, I entered adulthood knowing I didn’t want to raise one of my own – especially in the walk up apartments I usually lived in.
The early morning walks, the sidewalk poop, the required boarding or pet sitting every time I wanted to hit the road – owning a pet just didn’t fit the lifestyle I wanted. Luckily, there was an abundance of cats and dogs at my friends’ houses that they were willing to share in case I needed puppy snuggles STAT 🙂 . In fact, there are more dogs than kids in Seattle 😉 .
This misalignment of wants is even more true for our nomad life since I don’t want to live in an RV or a van, which seem more conducive to having a pet depending on their size. The pros haven’t outweighed the cons and based on hearing about how much vet bills and other items can rack up, it seems like this helped my financial standing as well.
Now before you write me off saying “I hate pets” (I don’t), I think there might be a time in my life where the pros here outweigh the cons and I get a pet for companionship after I’ve extinguished my travel bug, but that day has not yet come.
POSSIBLE SAVINGS: $25,650
Kids
First of all, I simply don’t want kids and talk about why here: No, I’m Never Having Kids. However, I think that if I were on the fence about that decision, the immense amount of work required to raise children, how it’s a job for life and the fact that you get no breaks, would all be in my personal con list. I’m much too lazy for that 😉 . Kids should be for people who want them wholeheartedly and will give them all the time they require and that’s simply not me.
Anyway, all of those time commitments obviously don’t even factor in how much kids cost in money and the future of the environment. If you’re curious about the latter, I wrote a whole guest post about it here: The Environmental Impact of Having No (Or Fewer) Children. For the former, according to the USDA, one child costs on average $12,980 per year to raise just including food, shelter and other necessities. Schooling and college sold separately.
POSSIBLE SAVINGS: $12,980 per year
Conclusion
When people ask me how 1 (one person in the US) can live on $20,000 a year, the reasons above are basically what I tell them. My weird life preferences have luckily aligned with ways I have avoided spending a lot of money in the past and on an ongoing basis.
Tallying up all of the above, I’ve possibly saved $260,255 by 30 because of my weird preferences. And I think a lot of those revelations came down to me realizing how much more busy and stressful my life would be if I added those things to it. So, once again, laziness for the win 😉 .
Has laziness ever helped you avoid a purchase that wasn’t for you?
I would not use the word LAZY because you are a lot but not at all a lazy lady. You acted, day by day, smart actions, differently and you did it great and this is totally opposite to lazy. Whatever, my message is that all we have the chance to keep a 25-50% saving rate even as a parent, even as single, as owner of a home or a car, all we have to do is to do, think, decide different, and keep discipline, as you!
For me, too, keeping life simple and stupid is a good financial solution, and pushing out of the box to find new different alternative and this is available to buy home, stuff, car, child, etc.
Yes, I bought a home (several times 😀 ) -and when I moved the renters covered the mortgage and now selling is a lot of money extra for me and I think was great to invest with the others money special in that years and that country where was no access to any brokerage account / companies / or site. Yes, living no car helped me a lot, but that because I decided to live close to subway (public transport in big cities is great) and walking daily is a great low cost sport activity with a lot of savings in health – well, count this numbers! . I have a kid but she came with great life lessons as the spending in the name of the child was to compensate what me the mom I was missing.
Haha well thank you for saying that 🙂 . That’s great you’re able to maintain that kind of savings rate and have found ways to make a house, no car and a kid work best for you!
All these “savings” you are talking about are purely subjective. One can have a house, a car, pets, kids, etc. and live a wonderful life on less than $20,000 a year. That’s what we do (minus the pets) in Boston.
So, I’m glad you have so nicely presented it as your personal choice how to live, but many people who like to follow “what’s cool” or what somebody they admire does, will take your opinion and choices as the gospel and that will be deceptive, because while you’ve listed those big numbers you are “saving”, you have not listed the $$$ you will spend on renting a place for the rest of your life, transportation costs you incur, etc. Kids and pets of course are an outright savings if you don’t have them, but not so much shelter and transportation.
I’d suggest balancing these numbers for savings with what you are spending for the alternative, so it’s closer to reality.
Same here, I do think it is a bit of a biased and unbalanced information regarding the housing. Not that I say you should write otherwise and I think it’s great you thought about your decisions because a lot of people don’t do that enough. But where we live it is cheaper to buy even when the market is crazy right now. One would pay more for rent than for mortgage per month while at the end we get that money back when we sell the house and people that rent do not. I don’t understand really why people think renting is cheaper, only if the house sells for less I guess you have a problem but that chance doesn’t seem big atm. Unless of course if one would live In a 20 meter room or so like students though. There aren’t a lot of people who want to do that, but sure it is possible. My brother in law rents a brand new apartment but says it is cheap only because he splits the bill with his girlfriend and they have seperate finances. In total it is still more expensive than our house.
Thank you for sharing your perspective! It can definitely be cheaper to have a house in some places – I’ve just never lived in those places myself 🙂 .
I think the housing savings can be calculated as $ you would have had to pay down on a house. For example, let’s say you put 20% down on a $350K home; that is $70,000 a year, with an average housing appreciation of 3%. The S&P has appreciated 15% since you have had your index funds. Net, there is a 12% return on $70K a year you are saving or $8400 a year. This almost holds all things equal:) Your # would be met in about 14 years.
Interesting way to approach it! Thank you for sharing.
Totally agree. I just responded to someone else in more detail, but basically we own a multi-family that we live in, and our housing is free (savings of about $2500 a month in our area), plus we don’t have to work so hard to pay for the housing, which means that our daughter pays 90% less tuition in her elite private college because our earned income is not high (saving us and her about $260,000 over 4 years). Not to mention building equity which is a no-brainer unless you bought unwisely. So there are many benefits of home ownership if combined with a certain low-key/frugal lifestyle.
Would love to see your numbers for a house, car, and children on a budget of less than $20k in Boston. Please share!
For housing, we own a multi-family house and the rent more than covers mortgage, taxes, etc. Even when we had to deal with bigger problems in the house, it was well worth it. People forget that even if you rent and your landlord is responsible for repairs, he may not do them at all or do them sloppily, and your life will be just as inconvenienced as if you owned the house and had to fix it yourself. There are also other benefits of owning a multi-family house – you build equity, and don’t need to work so hard for your expenses which are now significantly lower since your housing is free. On top of it, when your kid goes to college, their tuition is much lower because your earned income is lower, too.
So I would say that home ownership (of a multi-family house where you also live) is the lazy way to build wealth because you can work less for your expenses and risk less than with stocks.
Anyway, for a car we drive a 2000 Nissan Altima that we bought used in 2007 for $7000 and paid it off in 2010. We haven’t spent more than $12000 to acquire and maintain it in the last 14 years. According to Purple Life (and I totally believe it!), most people spend a little less than this PER YEAR to own a car. Well, there’s a way to spend 90% less and we are doing it.
For food: we are vegetarians and healthy eaters, and grow a small garden in the city, so we spend about $200 on food per month for 3 people (mostly organic from Whole Foods or farmer’s market). We usually don’t eat out but do take out pizza from Bertuccis once a month when they run Buy 1 Get 1 free. We get 2 giant pizzas plus bread rolls for $20, and freeze the leftovers for several meals during the month.
Anything else: clothes, household goods, furniture, appliances, electronics, cosmetics for our daughter, etc., we have a culture in the area (since there are so many college students and young professionals) where people leave their unwanted stuff on the curb or put it on freecycle, so we don’t need to buy practically anything. We also donate our unwanted things in this way.
We have a lot of other small habits such as borrowing books from the library instead of buying them, no gym memberships but walking a lot, insulating our house for a very small fee while saving a lot of money in winter, volunteering for our compost service instead of paying the fee, etc.
So our budget is probably less than $10,000 a year, and we spend about $5000 for traveling overseas (not during the pandemic). We like exploring Europe and Asia a lot.
So anything is possible, you just have to decide what suits your personality and lifestyle better. One way or another you will have to take risks and responsibilities, and endure inconveniences.
Wow, some extremely interesting stuff in here. How old were you when you retired?
…Yes, they are subjective 🙂 . This is a blog about my life, not FIRE gospel. I try to be careful to never make it sound that way by inserting that these would be bad financial decisions for me, not everyone.
Fair point on removing what I’ve spent on replacement items, such as housing and transit from the ‘possible savings’ calculations. I’ll think about editing that. Overall these are averages based on the links I included and I assumed my costs would have been much higher living in Seattle/NYC, which in my mind offset the relative little I do spend on these things. Still a fair point though.
In Germany it’s less common to own your house/flat (I just checked with the census bureau – 57 % rent). Therefore I feel even less encouraged to buy a place to live 😀
Additionnally we have good rent laws and you’re well protected (which is sometimes a disadvantage for landlords – I know horror stories, too 😉 ).
Cool! I always love hearing how things are different in other countries. The American Dream seems to be wrapped up in a house, a car, a white picket fence and children and I’m glad to it’s not a global issue.
Your viewpoint has merit. Last weekend I had a massive leak under my bathroom sink. Actually leak is a misnomer. Water spewed from a hole in the pipe. I rolled out of bed wondering about the sound of it and stepped into standing water. The early morning gusher took 2 hours to turn off. My valves failed. 😂 Really! Condo insurance deductible $1,000. Possible damage to the apartments below. I have to investigate and pursue, not the building manager, Condo fees $575/month and climbing. Building has a gas problem which has taken 3 months to repair so far. We don’t want to be blown to bits so we calm down. Mostly. The repairs seem expensive. A special assessment is now hovering over our heads along with an extensive “eating out” Bill. Oh wait for it: my darling mom just moved in. I take care of her as she did me a thousand years ago. She’s a finicky eater. She’s a baby really. I can’t run off to conferences like I used to, it’s a new lifestyle. Yeah you are right. Ownership can be such a pain sometimes. By the way did covid attack my beloved Subaru? No but something did as it overheated on the highway 3 consecutive weekends. Had to buy a ‘newer” car cos I needed to. All this and more since Jan 2021. Truth to power, Purple! Ownership can be a pain sometimes. Pardon any spelling errors.
Oh no – I’m sorry to hear about your housing leak. That sounds scary. And wow you’ve had a lot go on recently – I hope nothing else unexpected comes up. You’ve got this!
I am so ready to sell our house. It takes so much money and effort to maintain and improve. I’m totally worn out. But most people like living in a house. It’s comfortable to nest.
I think I’d love a nomadic lifestyle like yours. I’ll have to try it first, though.
You’re lucky that your preference is so minimalist. I have everything on your list – house, car, kid, and pet… Ugh… Hahaha.
I hope the maintenance list dwindles soon! And totally – lots of people seem to prefer things that are ‘theirs’ and that’s totally fair. I’m lucky I’m not one of them. I am really excited to see you trying nomad life down the line – it’s fascinating.
We got rid of the house and that cemented the decision to be long-term renters for the foreseeable future. Sadly our pet left us last year but the commitment and cost is probably not something we would be taking on again anytime soon. We have cars but one is really old but reliable and on “low-mileage” insurance so it doesn’t cost much. I still commute to work – not bad 25 mins each way and love road trips so we have a new-ish car by choice (bought used). We wanted a child but compromised by having only one. She is awesome and fits well into our simple lifestyle. I will be busy with her when I RE.
I think ultimately what Purple was saying is to understand the cost and other implications of these “purchases” and make decisions based on your OWN values.
I love reading your blog because it’s not my life nor a life I could have. I’m definitely older and have lived in flyover country. I’m slowing down my life and had one kid but do own multiple properties (only one did I rent for about 3 years, good solution at the time but I never examined too close to see how it all landed). I do believe that it’s better to know folks who own things (lake house, boat and etc) than it is to own them but maybe I’m just really tired of adulting. I do hope you’ll keep posting but I get it if you don’t.
Thank you for saying that. Our lives are all different and I just like sharing a slice of mine. And haha totally better to know people or rent things in my opinion. Adulting is indeed sooo tiring. I’m looking into if I’ll continue posting and how frequently next month. Thank you for your kind words!
Would your current nomadic life be possible as a single person living on <=$20K/year, or is it mostly possible because you two can share housing expenses? I ask as a single person approaching that FI milestone, but had always assumed I'd need closer to $30-40K/year to handle all expenses without a partner to share costs.
I have been careful about keeping car costs relatively low and bought a relatively inexpensive condo for my HCOL area. Also adopted a cat 😺. If I paid off the condo, then living expenses staying here would be <$20K/year, but that wouldn't leave enough discretionary to travel much. There's a lot of options to consider, as I wouldn't be opposed to just selling it all and flying off in the sunset with a backpack. I have family who would be willing to adopt my cat. I'm unlikely to ever feel the need or desire to have children. Some of the more fun ideas include teaching abroad, pursuing a PhD, or hanging out on a beach somewhere writing comics. It's a little too early to choose fun over security, especially since it won't take all that long at a job that I still enjoy a lot about to reach a safer portfolio. Or is security overrated and it's better to just take the risks now?
Is it worth pursuing the larger target to be able to have a home base here and travel? Would having a comfortable home base actually end up causing me to choose more comfort over adventures that make me feel more alive?
Earlier on in the journey, it seemed clear that it would be easy to hit the number and peace out of the 9-5 forever. Now that it's getting closer, especially if I'm willing to make drastic changes, it all seems surreal. I think you can tell just from this post that I'm of two minds about where to go from here. From reading your articles, it seems like you were very much ready to make the leap and I admire you for that!
It’s definitely still possible. I built my financial plan assuming my partner and I would break up and there wouldn’t be economies of scale. That’s why I have so many buffers in my spending amount: assuming I would still spend the same amount living in the middle of Seattle, adding an 11% buffer on top of that to get my base spending and not having a spending ceiling so I can spend more than $20K later in life if I need or want to.
Also since you mentioned just riding off into the sunset: in some ways my costs would go down if I was single because I could do more international travel to LCOL countries instead of mostly staying in the US so my partner can work in similar time zones to his colleagues.
Costs are obviously personal and based on each person’s lifestyle, location etc. And the only person that can answer all those questions you posed is you. There’s no wrong answer 🙂 . And thank you!
Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
The questions are mostly thinking out loud. LCOL countries could be an option. Since I don’t have a lot of experience travelling abroad, I’ll look into what skills are valuable in my field abroad and what PhD options would be available. Having a trial contract abroad may clarify whether I would enjoy it or get homesick after a while. It’s probably best to start incorporating more of the things I want to do post FI into my life now, but without giving up a paycheck that allows me to continue towards FI. Hopefully COVID will be under control in the near future.
LCOL countries may be less feasible than in the past. I teach overseas and planned to freelance from Thailand last year, but even when they started to reopen the borders, they decided to be much stricter about who they let in than before. Mexico is also enforcing its tourist visa rules more strongly than before to encourage foreigners who have been living on the tourist visa to pursue residency, but they require anywhere from $1600-3,000 of income deposited in one account a month or a certain amount of savings… so I am now considering other countries like Argentina and Ecuador. Hopefully, for FIRE’s, the savings would cover the requirement, but it’s a challenging process, still.
Of course, there are always ways to work within a stricter structure, but the pandemic seems to have lessened the privilege of the US and North American passports. Many LCOL countries are choosing to be more stringent in their requirements, as is their right, but it may shift and has shifted some people’s plans. (I am reading and loving Quit Like a Millionaire, but she quickly throws out “You can just move to Thailand” a lot and it’s no longer as easy.)
YouTubers like Backpacking Brunette have addressed this. It’s an interesting topic.
I would say that we eloped out of my laziness because the cost horrified me (my DH wanted a full open bar) when we were trying to save for a house downpayment (also DH’s choice… I could have been a renter for life but I actually HATE moving so from that perspective owning is better). So… I just didn’t pony up half the planning. I highly recommend elopement to anyone who wants to get hitched and doesn’t have a highly scripted idea of what their “special day” would be. (“Special day” seemed to me to be code for “it will be expensive”… which, you know, I really was more down for the honeymoon being expensive. Let’s at least go for a special WEEK people.)
Another great example! I am so curious about the cost of a full bar. “Special day” totally seems like another way to say expensive. Also it’s wild that the same items (flowers, cake) cost more if you say it’s for a wedding. I’m getting scam vibes 😉 . And YES for an expensive week of honeymoon/vacation instead of an equally expensive few stressful hours. I’m with you.
Our chosen location was an independent house so we hired everything out including the caterer. Because of this we were able to get a licensed bartender while also buying all of the drinks we want ourselves from a liquor store. We pre-ordered and they actually delivered to the location. If we didn’t do this, we would have just done champagne only.
Dear Purple,
Re – Purchasing a home. I’m in the SF Bay Area and I am baffled by the U.S.’s continued obsession with home ownership.
My parents bought in the Bay Area 50 years ago. It worked very well for them, but please, young people, don’t base your life decisions on what worked 50 years ago!
At present, locals stretch to purchase a home and then invest all their funds into homeownership, sometimes by necessary and sometimes not. The roof needs fixing or the sewer line breaks; other times people decide that they “need” a new kitchen, either to maintain the property’s value or for their own enjoyment. My Vanguard shares require no maintenance or designer tiles. Yeah Vanguard!
I will disclose that I came to this conclusion over many years, in part b/c when I wanted to purchase a home I wasn’t willing to move to the outskirts and commute in, or give up the amenities in my neighborhood to afford it. Over time, as my portfolio has grown due too massive cash infusions and compound interest, I’ve decided that there are advantages to renting. We have also been renting the same place since 2003 and have a sweet, sweet deal. Not so for folks on the rental market new to the area or relocating.
Now, with the climate changing and more frequent fire and related poor air quality, the ability to leave California without selling a house at a loss gives me a sense of relief, too.
Thanks for sharing your adventures with us! If you are ever in Bay Area, would you consider a meet up?
P.S. I read Work Won’t Love You Back last month and immediately thought of you, and planned to recommend it – but you had already read and posted about it! I also recommend Jenny O’Dell’s How to do Nothing, along the same lines. (Author is Bay Area based, so lots of local references)
From,
Green
“Please, young people, don’t base your life decisions on what worked 50 years ago!” – PREACH! All great points, especially the effects of climate change that will increase. I didn’t even include that and now realize I should have!
Randomly I was actually just in the Bay Area – SFO specifically though and it was just for a second. When I come back let’s totally meet up!
And I’ve read Work Won’t Love You Back? It might be because I read so many books this year with my 52 in 52 challenge, but I don’t remember that. I’ll look into it and add it to my list if my memory isn’t failing me. How To Do Nothing spoke to my soul and cool on the references!
I have a house, 2 cars, an RV, a house, a rental condo and 4 kids lol!! All the things you don’t want. And yet I still love this post and your content in general. I always look forward to your Tuesday posts, loved this one too.
(I feel the same about pets, so there’s that 😉)
Haha yeah – to each their own 🙂 . And that’s so kind of you to say!
I always enjoy these posts. You’re a bit more “radical” than me in how you executed on your plan, but I’m with you 100% on housing, cars, pets and kids involving huge investments in time and dollars (even beyond the initial purchase price in the case of the first 3). The difference in my story is that I have 20+ years on you and I have all of these in my life still (and happy with each decision and knowing the impacts/costs when making the commitments).
The decision always comes down to personal priorities, but often times people fail to understand the true time-and-cost commitment to each course of action before making a decision.
You and I are at very different points in our lives, and lot of decisions you make are ones I would never do (based on my personal priorities). However I can at least appreciate the decision process you share in the posts, and vicariously experience a lifestyle wildly deviant from the decisions and thought processes I followed back in my 20’s and 30’s.
I’m looking forward to more stories in the future with “you continuing to be you!”
I’m so glad you enjoy them!! Thank you for telling me that. And I’m totally with you – you do you too 🙂 .
Posts like this always seem to bring out people who do the opposite and want to defend it. People live in different places and want different things – it’s all cool, folks. No one’s bashing anything here.
Personally, I’m with you, Purple. I’m not settled yet so owning property makes little sense (and where I live in Europe, the amount of money involved is just crazy. I’m put off by the price tags alone. Renting is a lot, but there are controls that make it a secure and easy option), don’t want kids, don’t need to own a car as public transport is so good, and no pets due to a lifestyle that’s inappropriate for them. The pet thing might change in future. I don’t feel I’m missing out at all, I feel free and in control.
Home ownership in particular has so much cultural weight to it, but the upward trend of prices and valuations (in the UK at least) doesn’t seem sustainable to me. I truly don’t know how it can continue long-term.
Keeping things simple has so many benefits. You might call it “lazy”, I call it “knowing and living your values” 😉
You said it – not me 😉 . And haha I like the rebrand. Based on how many naps I take and how much I enjoy sitting on a couch and reading I think I’ll keep the ‘lazy’ moniker for myself though 🙂 .
It’s been rare over the last 15 years, but only a few people in the PF space have really grasped why I chose to center my blog around lazinessness. Welcome to the club! 🙂
I understand the house thing. We outsource most of the repairs and it’s only a 2-3 things a year. It makes travel more difficult, but hours and hours in a car or sardining myself into a plane seat isn’t my thing.
I’m not a city person, so cars are extremely helpful. I don’t want to take a bus to the grocery store and I’m not comfortable with Uber/Lyft. I can drive a car almost forever (I have one from 2001) and I don’t put a lot of miles on it, so it gets fairly cheap.
I originally didn’t want a dog, but having that push to get me out and exercising has been awesome. Combine the dog experience with having a house and I’ve made closer to six figures pet sitting , which is a pretty lazy income. It would be enough to pay off 1/5th the house.
Kids are a lot of work. However, having them is kind of a second chance to relive your own youth, but upgraded with all the cool things today.
I guess there are multiple ways to be “lazy”, it’s all up to your own personal preference.
Haha thank you! Happy to join 🙂 . As for the sardine thing, come join me in first class with points 😉 . It totally changed how I look at plane travel – now I look forward to it instead of dread it. Just curious: Why aren’t you comfortable with Uber/Lyft? Is it a pandemic thing or something else? They both currently have mandates everywhere that drivers and riders have to wear masks. And yep – there are seemingly infinite ways to be lazy – you do you 😉 .
The benefits of simplicity!
I have a similar orientation–whenever there’s a big decision to make, I tend to step back and try to assess the overall picture, including whether it’s worthwhile to do the thing [whatever that thing may be]. It’s helped me avoid some mistakes in the past. Glad it’s helped you too!
Procrastination for the win!!! 😛
Maybe that’s a better title 🙂 – I like it. Haha I’m not actually a procrastinator, but I can see how that would save some money through just passing on things. And yay for thinking things through before jumping in – I love it so much.
No house, no kids, no cars, no pets is very different than my life. But I guess it works for some.
Are you a Leo? Great hair and even greater laziness! 😅
Haha I’m not, but thank you 🙂 .