Everyone fantasizes about working less, but what does it really take to hop off the treadmill? Annabel McAleer finds seven ways to slow down and simplify your life without too many sacrifices, and we meet five Kiwi families who have changed their lives to suit their true priorities
If you’re feeling stressed out and stretched thin, you’re not alone. About a third of New Zealanders slog for 50 or more hours a week, and 40 percent of us have difficulty balancing our work and home lives. The more time we spend working, the harder it is to squeeze in time for family, friends, our homes and health. It may seem like there’s no way off the treadmill, but it could be easier than you think to slow down, save money and simplify your life. Here’s how five Kiwi families have done it—and how you can too
Words: Annabel McAleer. Photo: Mike Heydon
How to simplify your work life
Try flexible working or job-sharing
If you have a flair for the dramatic, quitting your job to find part-time employment or to work for yourself is one way to simplify your life—but gaining more freedom doesn’t have to mean giving up your career.
Flexible working and jobsharing are becoming more popular in New Zealand. Our employment laws now give people with children or other dependants (though your pet might be a long shot) the right to request changes to the hours, days or place they work, and employers have limited grounds to refuse their requests. There are plenty of ways you can build more flexibility into your job, such as starting and finishing early, or compressing a 40-hour week into four days. See good.net.nz/2/flexi for some more ideas. If decreasing your hours or income isn’t an option, working from home might be. You’d think the main benefit would be cutting out your commuting time and the associated expenses, but the best thing about working from home could be that you actually get more work done—and with less stress.
One study of IBM employees in 75 countries found that employees who telecommuted or worked flexitime were able to work a full 19 extra hours per week before their work lives began to conflict with their personal lives.
The benefits:
- Be more motivated and productive
- Less stress
- Less guilt
- Less time commuting
- Better manage responsibilities outside work
- Keep your career on track
- More time and freedom
The creative life
Grace Bridges
Two years ago, I gave up an undemanding full-time job as a secretary in the German police force (the result of an OE gone long) to live on a part-time translation gig of about one day a week. I made my way home to New Zealand the slow way, spending five months in Ireland and two in the US, supporting myself entirely on that one worday the whole time. During my time in Ireland I lived on about $90 a month after paying my rent. I got to like porridge very much! But the free time to wander the windswept beach and make up stories was totally worth it.
I’m now in demand as a translator and worabout two days a week, but it doesn’t need to be more. My freedom is more important to me. I’m an author and I enjoy the extra time to write. I also publish books by other writers in my genre.
I recently bought a house in Auckland, but I don’t expect to change my worhabits. My flatmates help me finance it, leaving no more for me to pay than an average room rental would be. These days, the extra wormakes porridge a less frequent occurrence, but I’ll resist taking on any more worthan is absolutely necessary.
More info On job-sharing: good.net.nz/2/ jobshare On flexible working: good.net.nz/2/ flexible
Refuse a promotion, overtime or travel
What’s your hourly rate?
Carole Livesey and Chris Lampard run weekend ‘Simplify your Life’ workshops, where they help people work out how much they’re really paid per hour. The formula goes like this: add up all your earnings (less tax), then subtract the costs of working (like commuting, clothing and meals), including ‘decompression’ activities that help you wind down from work (your nightly glass of wine, for example). This is your true annual income.
For the true amount of time you spend working, add up the hours you’re paid to work each year, minus annual leave and public hols (an average 40-hour week works out at 2,080 hours). Now add to that all the extra hours associated with work: your commute, overtime, events, time getting ready in the morning, even shopping for work clothes.
Divide your true income by your true hours, for how much you’re really paid per hour. It may be a bit shocking, but it’s a useful way of working out how much something costs in terms of ‘life energy’, say Chris and Carole. If you know you earn $25 an hour, then is that $100 item really worth four hours of your life?
Read more about this idea in Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin, Monique Tilford and Joe Dominguez. Email sustainablemoney
@gmail.com for workshop information
Your job may bring home the free-range bacon, but working has its costs. Some are financial—public transport or parking, lunches—but others are less tangible. Long commutes, high stress, feeling frazzled with your kids and being too tired to socialise are often the price you pay for working hard.
If you’re offered a big promotion, overtime or a career-enhancing business trip, it’s easy to see the financial benefits, but don’t discount the personal costs. Is the financial benefit of a promotion really worth the extra stress, loss of free time or undermining family harmony?
The benefits:
- Consciously decide whether your current income is sufficient
- Break out of the ‘growth is good’ mindset
- Avoid unnecessary lifestyle sacrifices
Take half a day off to spend with someone you love
Downshifting guru Tracey Smith says the connection between time and money is simple: “The more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you get to spend with the ones you love.”
Slowing down can be as simple as taking a few hours off work to spend with your partner, child, or even yourself. “On your half-day off, you should indulge a special relationship,” says Tracey. “That doesn’t mean go DIY shopping together either! Make up a few sandwiches and a flask and go for a walk. Enjoy each other’s company and remember why you fell in love with them in the first place.”
The benefits:
- De-stress from work
- Reconnect with your family
- Feel a sense of control over your time
- Re-align your priorities
How to simplify your spending
Cut up a credit card
The easiest way to keep track of what you’re spending is to pay cash for everything—but that’s easier said than done. The popularity of revolving credit mortgages and the convenience of online shopping mean that most of us couldn’t do without a credit card. But do we really need two or three? The more credit cards we have, the harder it is to keep track of spending and debt. The solution: Focus on paying off one credit card, cancel it, then chop that plastic into pieces.
Tracey Smith, the founder of International Downshifting Week (held yearly in April), says cutting up a credit card is powerfully symbolic. “The very act itself offers an instant and positively liberating effect. Living within our means is something we’ve forgotten how to do … Cut the temptation and you automatically cut the stress.”
The benefits:
- Reduce debt
- Prevent overspending
- Save more (or work less)
- Get back in touch with the true value of your earnings
- Feel more in control
Support sustainable, local and ethical businesses
Simplifying your spending doesn’t mean stopping shopping. Rather, it’s about focusing your spending on products, services and manufacturers you feel good about supporting. Consciously limiting your options is a great way to avoid feeling overwhelmed by choice, which can easily lead to overspending. Identifying just two or three favourite New Zealand clothing labels, for instance, makes shopping much easier: new garments will go with the ones you already own, and loyal customers often get first notice of sales and new season arrivals.
For a more frequent feel-good shopping hit, become a regular at the local shops. These often quirky, multipurpose shops give character to our suburbs—and those that survived last year’s recession need our support more than ever. “By making one new purchasing decision each week that favours local seasonal produce or an independently owned business, you are helping to breathe new life into these precious resources,” write Tracey Smith and Susan Donohoe in the US Downshifting Manifesto. And there’s nothing that makes you feel part of a community more than a local cafe knowing how you take your coffee, or the bookshop phoning when your favourite magazine arrives.
The benefits:
- Save time
- Support local businesses
- Connect with your community
- Get more satisfaction from your purchases
The sustainable life
Brenda Wotton
I’m a pharmacist who had spent the past few years juggling two part-time jobs (totalling 40 hours a week) with two children and a shift-working husband in the police service. One day it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t need to worso hard (my husband earns enough to pay the bills), and that I was in danger of not being around for my children if I wasn’t careful. So I resigned from my most demanding job, and freed up my time considerably.
My husband and I have been working on being as sustainable as possible, greatly influenced by Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. We often use the term ‘locavore’, which gets strange looks from our friends—until we explain it. Our dream is to generate power to feed bacinto the grid, but that’s a worin progress.
My first month at home was spent harvesting and preserving. Working for a boss almost seemed easier, but my full cupboards made it worthwhile. The vegetable garden has now taken over the front garden, hopefully inspiring locals who walpast. I grow my vegetables from seeds, but we buy seedlings if a crop fails—the best of both worlds.
We both have farming backgrounds, which taught us to be careful with water. We’re also conscious of the waste we produce, although it’s hard on our children, who want everything they see advertised. They would love packets of potato chips in their school lunches, but I have a thing about packaged food. Zero waste is our goal, or as Te Radar said on his TV programme, “close the circle”.
We are an ordinary New Zealand family trying to do the right thing, and it’s not as hard as everyone thinks. We are both professional people, we like eating fresh local produce, drinking New Zealand wines and we try to wear New Zealandmade clothes. Before we buy anything we consider its impact on both the environment and the economy—being sustainable to an extreme could adversely affect local jobs and national industries.
In my ‘spare time’ I take piano lessons (my teacher is within walking distance) and attend yoga classes (biking distance). I’m a member of Tauranga Slow Food, and help out at the boys’ school. My foray into cheesemaking has got as far as mozzarella and feta, and I’m slowly perfecting my brie. None of these things would have been possible if I hadn’t been brave enough to jump off the treadmill!
Sleep on impulse buys
When you’ve had a tough day, an impulse buy can give you a little lift. But the pick-me-up effect almost never lasts as long as the buyer’s remorse that all too frequently follows. To avoid regret and be smart about impulse buys, set yourself a guilt-free spending limit: enough for coffee and cake, a magazine or a movie, say.
As soon as you feel the pull towards purchasing something that’s over your impulse budget, stop! Put the lust-worthy item down, go home and sleep on it. (As well as sleeping, it’s also a good idea to think about how often you’ll use it, and go online to check out product reviews, make price comparisons or see whether it’s available secondhand.) If you decide to return to the shop the next day, you’ll feel better about having made a more considered purchase.
If you tend to impulsebuy clothing, keep a list of garments you actually need to fill the gaps in your wardrobe. Treat the list as gospel: if your impulse purchase isn’t on it, don’t let yourself be talked into buying it.
The benefits:
- Limit overspending
- Feel more in control
- Avoid buyer’s regret
- Save money
- Take pride in avoiding the instant gratification mindset
Downsize your mortgage
The thing that keeps us in an unhappy job or sends us hurrying back to work from parental leave is often the one thing that can’t easily be downsized: a big old mortgage.
New Zealanders move house an average of once every six years, so if relocation is on the cards then try taking a fresh look at your priorities. Conventional wisdom says that we should trade up to a bigger or more centrally located house, but conventional wisdom isn’t always all that wise—or all that right for you.
Buying a smaller home, or moving out a couple of suburbs, could make that mortgage-free dream a reality long before retirement, or shrink your monthly repayments so that you no longer have to work nine-to-five.
The benefits:
- More freedom
- Increased cashflow
- Less financial stress
- Lower power and rates bills
- Less housework and maintenance
- Live mortgage-free sooner
The family life
Mark Rogers
After ten years with one company, I was paid well and my future could be viewed as too good to give up. But I wanted to spend more time with my family and have more control and flexibility in my life. For me, that meant a new career, going bacto the bottom of the worladder and a significant drop in income—potentially to zero. The only way to downsize my career was to also downsize my lifestyle.
My wife and I started imagining our dream scenario: a house on a few acres—preferably organically farmed—where we could become as self-sufficient as possible, with space, peace and privacy. Being closer to the grandparents, for their added support, was also important. Not too close, of course—just far enough to require a phone call before a visit.
We sold our rental property in Wellington and put our Kaikoura home on the market. It toosix months to find a new house—we’d set a modest top price as we wanted to be able to survive for a year without income. I left my job in December 2009.
Most people found our decision to resign in the middle of a recession, with an unsold house in a depressed market, difficult to grasp. We found it exhilarating. With the Kaikoura house still unsold, I now have a certain appreciation of their views!
But the benefits have outweighed the worries. I’ve spent more time with my family—my son now calls out for Daddy in the mornings—and my health and fitness has improved because of the more active lifestyle. I’ve also built a worm farm, watched the football World Cup and slept in afterwards, fixed the property water supply (successfully), repaired the floorboards (poorly), taken up lawn bowls, and still had time to pursue different employment ideas. A conventional job would never have given me the same sense of achievement.
Two months after moving, and after 18 months of trying, we became pregnant with our second child. It may be coincidence, but with less stress and more free time I have my suspicions. Six months after taking a leap of faith, we couldn’t be happier.
Should you downsize your house?
Will moving make life simpler?
That fantasy about the self-sufficient good life in a rural idyll makes for quite a lot of hard work in reality. Similarly, life won’t be much improved if you try to squeeze three teenagers into one room or add an extra 90 minutes to your daily commute. If your family or friends live out of town, will losing a spare room mean fewer visits—or fewer doting babysitters for the kids?
Will you save enough to make moving worthwhile?
Take into account savings in power bills and council rates, as well as smaller mortgage repayments—minus the costs of selling and moving, extra commuting expenditure, even buying new school uniforms if the kids have to change schools.
The frugal life
The Daycon family
After 15 years on the treadmill we were finally debt free, and figured we’d live our lives the way we wanted rather than working for others’ bottom line. With no cheating from a trust fund or savings, our family of three legitimately lived on two less-thanhalf- time wages all of last year. This year, even less.
We can’t afford the fancy alternative power and housing choices that are so expensive in New Zealand, but don’t want to climb bacon the treadmill to do get them. So we use mains power, a regular fridge, a heat pump, bathe regularly, and own computers and a car, yet our power consumption is well under the national average. We’ve made simple power savings: we minimise opening the fridge, turn off power at wall sockets, and have replaced our hot water cylinder with a new, efficient (but standard) model.
We own a small cottage, which suits us fine, and have a modest mortgage with repayments comparable to rent. Were it not for the running costs of a vehicle, we could woreven less.
Without the shackles of debt (outside of a reasonable mortgage), it is possible to downsize—and it doesn’t require a lottery win or that dream ‘lifestyle’ block. Gran had this stuff sorted, we’ve just lost our way.
- Avoid debt, use cash for weekly needs, and save for larger expenses
- Perfect the art of pinpoint-precision food shopping: go to local farmers markets, bulkbuy, trade, even shop at the supermarket (but avoid just tossing things into the trolley)
- Do your own baking and preserving
- Regularly seek the best rates available for power, communications and other utilities
- Find kick-ass cheap entertainment at the library and community events
What will you do when you’re 65?
Will the lower mortgage payments help you to invest enough money to retire comfortably, or will you rely on the profits from selling a big family home? Financial adviser Susanna Stuart points out that the number of baby boomers doing the latter has bumped up the price of smaller, low-maintenance city properties, so the amount freed up for retirement may be less than you expect.
What will you do with the money you save?
Will you work less, invest it or make extra mortgage repayments so you’re debt-free earlier? The answer depends on your priorities and stage of life. If you have a young family, the difficulty juggling your home and work life might come at the same time you’re at your peak earning power, says Susanna. Timing is everything!
Are you willing to declutter?
A smaller house means less room for stuff.
The self-sufficient life
Lena Iremonger
My husband and I have slowly been changing our lives since we had our daughter, who’s now four. We live in an old homestead on a farm owned by long-time family friends. We’re still renting, but we’ve been able to start living our dream. We hunt our own meat (like rabbit and hare), keep chickens for eggs and meat, have a huge veggie garden, a large number of established fruit trees, and we forage for berries, mushrooms, dandelions and watercress. Next I would like a milking goat!
A deer and ram provided by a friend have meant our freezer is well stocked—I can’t remember when I last bought meat from the supermarket. My mum and I make tomato sauce, apple cider, jams, relishes and chutneys, even elderflower wine—for ourselves and to give as presents. And because we live simply, we can afford to buy organic essentials.
I love op-shopping, so 99 percent of everything in our house is second-hand. I don’t believe in buying new if you can get it secondhand! The coal range is my favorite thing: I can cook, heat water and the house, and dry clothes all at the same time. How practical is that? I don’t use much coal—one bag lasts over a year. It’s better to use wood because it’s a renewable resource.
I’m an artist—my paintings are based on New Zealand’s native wildlife and scenery—and I’ve recently opened a gallery in a spare room. My husband, Andrew, is a builder, although he was out of work early last year and the building industry is still very slow. I thought we lived simply before, but not having an income made us realise how much more we didn’t need, and we’re sticking to the changes we’ve made.
