Happiness Is everything: Saving Money, Buying Time
Keeping Life Simple Makes Life Easier
Keeping in theme with Mr. CBB’s post this week ‘Money isn’t everything, happiness is‘ relationships and love I decided to share a bit about my day-to-day life. You all know how hectic and busy my life is but now I want to share with you how I am making more time for things that make me happy and saving money at the same time.
I’m a mom on the go so working, caring for your children and a house can be overwhelming and challenging. I strive to find the proper balance between them all. I love my job, wish I could spend more time with the kids and less time cleaning and organizing our house.
What is worth your time?
How often do you say I just need a few more minutes or a couple more hours in a day? What could you eliminate from your life or reduce the amount doing in your day to find that time? I want more time to do things like work on my son’s writing and my daughter’s drawing and spend less time doing housework.
Mr.CBB’s to-do list has been great in helping me get some of the bigger projects done around my house which makes me so happy to finally get them done, but then I find I’ve neglected things like laundry and the bathroom, there is always something to do.
I don’t want to spend all my time at home cleaning, organizing and folding laundry. These last few months I’ve been working on how I manage my time which has been a straight-line focus for me. My goal has been ongoing and I’m trying to eliminate the craziness in my life. Has it been easy? No, not but I’m getting there and like Mr. CBB says, we should never give up when we want to reach our goals, we need to push.
What makes you happy?
How often have you found yourself saying, “I wish I had more time to spend with my kids” or just simply sit down and read a book? I ask myself this question all of the time but that’s all going to change for me. There is just too much to do in our home and honestly I don’t want to do it all anymore. After work I would love to spend every night playing with the kids but all I can ever see is all the things that need to get done.
Eliminate unnecessary stress
If you have been around Canadian Budget Binder for a while you likely know that I do not like doing laundry, mainly folding. Mr. CBB has been teasing me with the offer of trading laundry for landscaping and I’ve contemplated responding to him with a giant, YES!!
Although I know he loves to cook and just last week he asked, “do women find men sexy who cook”, well I wouldn’t kick him out of my kitchen if he wanted to whip up some of his famous fudgy brownies for me. I keep hoping one day he will actually come through for me. Please? Just before we left for vacation opening my laundry room door and looking at the mountain of clothes made me realize that whoa, we have way too many articles of clothing.
I have been fortunate to save money buying clothes for the kids and myself by receiving hand-me-downs from great family and friends. In no way do I mean to sound ungrateful but we all know how hard it can be to say no to something when it’s free. I have to question though, does my son really need 50 t-shirts and 20 pairs of pants?
Presumably we can cut his wardrobe back to 20 shirts and 10 pairs of pants or even less and get through just fine. Now that I will be downsizing our closets for all three of us I may have to do laundry a little more often but what I hope I can do is teach the kids to take better care of their clothes. Oh yeah and not have to fold as much! That will be another life skill which I will teach my children but one that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.
Donating excess items
I am ever so grateful for the clothing donations that were given to me so a friend of mine will be sending the excess clothes to the Philippines, how awesome is that? There are many things in our home that I believe we can do without so as I find items I no longer need or want I pass them along to someone who can use them by donating them.
I’m not worried about making a fast dollar from selling the clothes as I believe in when you give you get and then you give back to others. This helps me save money and then I save someone else some money too.
This approach is also going to be applied to my kitchen, I loved and appreciate every single wedding gift and shower present we received but I have learned what I need and what I use and will be finding new homes for the rest. Cutting back on time in the kitchen and laundry room will greatly minimize the stress of my daily chores.
While reducing the amount of belongings in our home I am also testing my self-control to stop bringing unnecessary items into our home. So now when I am shopping I will not only ask myself the question ‘I can buy it, but can I afford it?’ but also where is it going to go and do we really need it? Or do I really want to fold more laundry and that answer will more often than not be NO!
Buying time
De-cluttering, downsizing and minimizing all 3 words in my mind right now because after some soul-searching this past month I realized my life was cluttered and I was tired all the time.
Now I know that happiness is everything and if I can save myself time and money to spend with the kids and on what we want to do then I’ll do whatever it takes to make us happy. Keep your life simple and you will see the beauty that we often pass by because once time is gone, it’s gone.
Discussion: What could you do without for just a little more time money and happiness?
Post Contribution:
Katrina is regular contributor for Canadian Budget Binder and is as passionate about personal finance as she is gardening. Katrina is a horticulture graduate with over 10 years experience with landscaping and greenhouse production.
