Turtles-Paradise

Living a balanced life is something that I feel is they key to happiness. The growth of minimalism, the surge of interest in working for yourself as an online entrepreneur, the desire to live simply and connect with the people around – it all seems to be a reaction to a materialistic, and unbalanced life that has come to be seen as normal.

We are encouraged to believe that working relentlessly until we are 65 is what life is about. School has become increasingly like the world of work – where endless exams, projects, paperwork and uniforms take the place of play and exploration. Work has taken over more and more of our lives, with salaried workers regularly putting in more hours than contracted for, and those with part-time, minimum wage jobs frequently having to take on two or three jobs just to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened so that in 2006 the top 2% of the world population owned more than half of the worlds wealth. In order to afford the ‘standard of life’ that advertisers tell us is both normal and desirable, we are forced to take on debt, work overtime, and pay most of our income towards the upkeep of an unsustainable lifestyle. A few talented people make millions, a few lucky people inherit millions, and the rest are left to lurch from financial crisis to financial crisis.

The other day, I had to repot some of my plants. I went to the garden centre, and I paid for a few sacks of dirt. Yes, dirt – the very stuff this planet is covered with. Others pay for bottled water. It won’t be long before someone figures out how to sell us oxygen.

My very simple solution is:

• Spend less.
• Work less.
• Have more fun.

Spend Less

Downsize your house. Better still, get rid of your house. Live out of a van, or a tent, or a spare room. Learn to see the true cost of things – a £200 washing machine is nearly 30 hours of work at £7 an hour. A £400 iPad is nearly 60. A £200,000 house is 3.2 years of non-stop, 24 hour work.

The places to cut your costs are the places where you spend the most. Your rent. Your food. Your entertainment splurges. Eat more lentils. Is that chicken tikka take-away really worth spending an extra hour at work?

Work Less

Once you’ve cut your costs to the bone, you can afford to work less. Take a single part-time job. Start a minimalist business. Work from home. The less you spend, the less you need to worry about earning.

Have more fun

When you’re not working, what are you going to do instead? You’ll finally have the time to travel. To learn new skills. To cook properly. To have long, silly conversations on the telephone. To take long walks. All the things that you don’t have time for now.

I should make it clear that I’m not there yet. Unlike the many people out there that have succeeded in quitting their full-time jobs and spend their time doing what they love I still work 37 hours a week or so, and I still have a large rent payment and a lot of stuff.

But I’m determined. I’ve spent the last year reading amazing blogs. I now know that it is possible. In a year, we’ll be heading to a place we don’t have to pay rent. In that year, I’m going to work on getting rid of as much of our belongings as possible, so that we don’t have to pay to move it or store it, and so we can start with the wonderful possibility that empty space creates.

I’m working towards a balanced life. What are you working towards?

One of the things that often bothers me about ‘Eco-Living’ is the saturation of the market with products labelled as green, eco-friendly etc. and that as a result come at a premium price. It seems like a triumph of marketing more than anything else.

It also has the problem of penalising people on low incomes, who frequently cannot afford organic-cotton fairly-traded independent designer premium cardigans. Whilst I do believe that we need to put our money where our principles are, it should be recognised that a great many people struggle to make ends meet and often cannot even afford enough to eat. This is true both in the developed world, and in the developing world. The different access to resources between a large corporation and a small independent business needs to be recognised. The difference between someone on a professional income raised with a good understanding of ‘how money works’ and someone on a part-time minimum wage job who generally runs out of money before they run out of month also needs to be recognised.

‘Eco-friendly’ products frequently act as a way of assuaging guilt. They are a way of us continuing a pattern of consumption and convenience but paying a little more in order to feel like we’re still doing the right thing. Buying new clothes every season is not sustainable, regardless of how organic the cotton is.
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Every Tuesday I will be posting some short and simple tips on how to spend less money. Short, simple, easy.

• Stay fit. You don’t need an expensive gym membership – go for a long walk, or take up running. You’ll save money on medicine and health insurance.
• Quit smoking. Not only will that help you stay fit, it will also save you money. Okay, this tip might be short and simple, but it isn’t easy. It’s worth it though.
• Quit drinking soda and fizzy drinks, and stick to tap water. Cheaper and healthier!
• Make a meal plan – or download one that’s already made.
• Set up a savings account, and automatically deduct £10-25 a month straight from your paycheque and into that account. Use the money to deal with emergencies and one-off expenses.

I struggle with money. There, I said it, even despite all the posts about tips on reducing your spending!

The cold hard truth is that I spend over 50% of my take-home pay in one go. My rent payment. If you factor in my utility bills, council tax, and other bills – I pay out almost 75% of my income on bills.

Over at Get Rich Slowly, there’s a post on the Balanced Money Formula originally from All Your Worth. This is what the picture from it looks like:

Even after I pay 75% onto bills, I still have the basic need to eat some food once in a while. I spend an average of £200 a month on groceries for two people. That’s 18% of my take-home pay.

In other words, around 93% of my take-home pay goes on what I would call needs.

Ouch.

There are some basic and obvious steps we can take to make our spending a bit more balanced.

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Every Tuesday I will be posting some short and simple tips on how to spend less money. Short, simple, easy.

• Don’t eat meat, or use it sparingly as flavour. Instead of having a steak, have beef and barley stew.
• Don’t buy new clothes. Learn to love charity shops and ebay.
• Use the library and rental services instead of buying books, games and movies.
• Quit the gym, and go for a run in the park instead.
• Spend a day looking through your bank statements and tracking down any errant direct debits or subscription fees for services you no longer use.