A Different Approach

Boy, if you thought I was cheap before (or was it frugal?), wait until you see me now. We are in the midst of some big changes in our lives involving employment and money, and we have to come to a decision. We can either search for alternate employment opportunities, or work really hard to spend less.

There are basically two approaches to life that I’ve seen. People can either live a certain lifestyle by making enough money to maintain it, or they can live a simpler lifestyle and requires less work. Both scenarios have their pluses and minuses.

It’s nice to make a good income, and it’s nice to be able to afford things like hockey equipment and new cars, but you do become to a slave to consumption. All those purchases mean that you have to have a minimum income to afford them, in addition to food and lodging. The American model is to consume more than you can afford and go into debt. This can make you desperate to hold onto your job, putting you into a compromising situation, to say the least, and makes one more tolerant of stress and unhappiness because of it. Unfortunately, this seems to be the more common approach.

There are people out there that promote the idea of living a simpler life, which means less consumption, but also less dependence on a job. You still have to make income to afford the essentials, but the question becomes, how much is enough? On the downside, you can’t buy all the toys and live the extravagant life, but it gives you more free time to spend with your family, and you can stress less about a job you might hate. Then again, there’s always stress about not making enough money.

Either way, we’ve spent our entire lives, much like many people we know, clinging to jobs that make us miserable in order to live a certain lifestyle, and we tend to operate on the frugal/practical end of things. Now we’re going to take it to another level and see how it goes. I’m all for it, I think we live in a wasteful culture as it is, and this area embraces living in a way with less waste and less pollution, so we are not anomalies, at least not yet. I’ll keep working hard at keeping hockey in our lives, so I’m hoping that won’t go away, but the ball’s in my court.

We’ll see where this one takes us. Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to epSos.de for the pic.