How Much of Your Time is Spent Making Money to Support Going to Work?

This post is a follow up to yesterday’s post titled, I Invite You to Join Me on My Journey. If you are following along then let’s go.

    I don’t know if any of you are like me. I’m a Monday through Friday gal as far as work goes. Often I find myself working well into the evening and normally at least a few hours on the weekend. 

     My weekends also consist of yard work, house work, errands, preparing for work and an occasional visit to see the folks. I feel great! I have a job. I pay my bills. I am really enjoying the relationships with my parents and my family (most of whom are covered in fur and have four legs).

     As we have determined, I spend the majority of my time doing work. Well after doing a little basic, in my head math, I realize that most of my money is spent supporting the things I need to prepare for work. 

     We need 2 cars at our house because we are both in sales and often go different directions. In our case that also means 2 car payments, double the insurance, double the gas and so on. It also means that we have our Monday through Friday clothes (the dry clean onlys), and our weekend clothes. We have not one but 2 rooms in our house that we use as offices so we can work at home. There’s food for lunch. There are things to carry the food in. In many cases lunch is with a client and there’s that too. 

    Sometimes when work gets a little stressful instead of going home, we choose to go out to dinner. There’s nothing wrong with going out to dinner but when it’s JUST to unwind from work, I think of it as an expense. That happens more than I’d like. 

    If I did something different than the average Monday through Friday job, I could really save a lot of money! I mean A LOT! We could easily get by with one car. We’ve done it before for years. If we didn’t need two offices we could live in a home half the size of ours – very comfortably. That could mean 1/2 half of the mortgage payment.

     So how much do I really need then?

    I need to eat. I need shelter. I need clothes (but I’m not overly obsessed with having a new outfit every week). 

     How great would it feel to just simplify? I’m going to get rid of all the clutter (things I don’t need). I am almost certain the path to success and happiness will be done by making a few slight adjustments here and there and stepping away from the beaten path. If I take a few calculated risks and stop doing just what feels normal, I can really shoot for the stars.

     Join me for more later this week. 

KPK