Do Less (9 page)

If you're itching to change jobs but don't want to go back to school, consider a career shift rather than a 180-degree change. Perhaps you could still do your job, but for a different industry. You could work in finance for a hospital or a group practice, or work for a nonprofit that provides medical services overseas. If you manage a restaurant but always dreamed of working for a professional sports team, you could manage food concessions at a ballpark. There are ways to make your dream job a reality without starting from scratch or spending a ton of money on a new degree.

Another option is to work in your dream field as a hobby. We'll talk more about using your time wisely and with intention in the Life section of this book, but for now consider, if you had the time, could you volunteer or work part-time? The answer to your dream job quest may not be a new day job, but evenings or weekends spent volunteering in a field related to your dream job—instead of in front of the television or out shopping.

If you always wanted to be a veterinarian, you could work with animals in some way, perhaps volunteer at an animal shelter or foster puppies before they are trained as Seeing Eye dogs. You could start a dog-walking business or a weekend kennel service. Although some of your childhood dreams may no longer be a reality, achieving something close to them is always possible. The closet journalist can cover recreational league basketball for the local paper and the amateur baker can start a small weekends-only cupcake business. Fulfilling an interest or passion part-time, with the safety net of a bill-paying nine-to-five job, is a great way to explore a possible new career.

For some of us, the childhood fantasy of being a professional athlete has been replaced by a more burning desire to go back to school or become our own boss. You might have very real and possible goals, ones that you have already studied or created business plans for, but you can't make the big leap or really commit to them because of your commitments at home, your need for a paycheck, or your lack of startup money. Minimalism to the rescue: if you have your heart set on another career or starting your own business, minimalism can help you make those plans a reality.

Starting your own business or switching careers isn't common because both of these endeavors are incredibly difficult. If it were easy, everyone would be opening a restaurant, turning that sewing hobby into an online business, or taking two years out of the workforce to go back to school and become a dental hygienist. Many people have these ambitions, but few actually make the leap to that new career or building that business simply because it requires a lot of time, money, and effort.

These goals can be achieved, but you must break through two hurdles first: reduce your cost of living and increase available time. Here's how minimalism can help you jump those hurdles:

• The Home section gave you ideas for decluttering so you can live with less in a smaller space—thus freeing up time you used to spend cleaning and doing maintenance on your home.
  
• The Life section will help you create more time by reprioritizing your activities.
  
• The Money section will give you ideas for bill cutting and getting out of debt.
  

To give this new business or career your best shot, you'll need to trim your finances and even your social life. Minimalism can be a jumping-off point for your plan and will help transition you from dreams to reality.

When you want to career transition, it is imperative that you realize that you'll have to put the work in before life gets easier and simpler. You'll need to live simply and without a lot of extras while you pursue your passion. You'll need to save some of those hours you would spend out with friends for attending classes, studying, or building your business. If this business or new career is your true passion, it shouldn't be difficult to spend a weekend studying, working on a business plan, or answering customer e-mails. As Confucius said, “choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Although you might have to drum up some enthusiasm for the more mundane tasks of your new business, such as bookkeeping, the day-to-day of it should be something you're excited about and would do for free if you could. This burning passion for the job will be what sustains you while you temporarily work your day job on top of your new business.

The more tenets of minimalism you can embrace, the faster you'll reach the critical requirements to leave your day job. If you're building a business or freelance career, you'll need a lot less income, and you might be able to leave your day job sooner, if you have a small mortgage or very little rent to pay. Set a target for your tipping point—when you want your new career or business income to be enough that you can quit your day job—and keep that goal front and center in your thoughts and plans. Often, having that date or tangible financial goal burning in your mind can motivate you to make sacrifices to get there faster: move in with your parents temporarily, sell your car, or find a roommate.

Anyone entering this exciting transition phase should do so without debt. Ideally, you'll have at least six months of basic living expenses saved up before you leave your current job, plus already have a small but dependable income stream from your new business or freelance work.

There's no way around it: Change, big change, is full of risk. There is risk involved in changing careers. There are opportunities to fail when you push yourself outside of your comfort zone and try something new and foreign to you. What if you fail at switching careers? Worse, what if you put in all this work and find out you don't really want to be a restaurateur/project manager/carpenter? Unfortunately, there is a chance that even with a lot of preparation and training, your small business will fail.

Take comfort, though—minimalism can help you mitigate risk by lowering your cost of living and also by helping you build a profitable business. Startup costs you once thought mandatory (like an impressive office in an expensive location) can initially be replaced with minimalism-friendly options like working from home and meeting in cafés or client offices. If your business isn't web-based, a simple and inexpensive website will suffice over an expensive custom-designed website. There is always risk in starting a new venture, but keeping your overhead low and focusing on making your product or service the best it can be will reduce that risk.

The upside to taking risks is dramatic: great rewards. If you can't stop thinking about that dream career or business, or if you go to bed at night with business plans running through your mind, you owe it to yourself to take the risk for the bigger reward of a job you're excited to go to every morning. Doing work that you love is not always an easy path, but it is a rewarding one.

Whether you want to work less or more or start a new career, simplification and minimalism can help you reach your goal. The simplified life, the one where you actually can Do Less, often reveals your true ambitions and feelings about your job. Something that used to be the definition of success—a certain company or position—might reveal itself to be transparent. On the other hand, sometimes removing the clutter and creating more time reveals new or old career and business ambitions. Whichever work path you choose, be it a new direction or growing stronger roots at your current job, minimalism will help you flourish.

One of the beautiful things about minimalism is that there are many ways to simplify your life, but none of them requires more money. In fact, minimalism will help you rethink your entire approach to money.

Take a moment to think about your financial life. Do you feel in control of your spending habits? Are you living well below your means, or do you always hit a cash crunch at the end of the month? Are you often asking yourself, where did all my money go? Take heart in knowing that these are common struggles for most people, even those with well-paying jobs.

The minimalist secret to money is just that: you already earn enough. You can be in control of your finances, have enough money to pay your bills, save for your future, and still have funds leftover for things that bring value into your life. And you won't need to get a second job or sustain yourself on Ramen noodles alone to get there.

Minimalist money strategies are simple and effective, and can help you save more, work less, and invest in things that bring real value to your life. Once you've spent a few hours clearing out your home and donating things that you worked and paid for but rarely or never used, it's easy to see that buying more isn't a path to happiness. When you've reflected on your day and realized the highlight was watching the sunrise as you walked the dog before work (not the overpriced lunch out with colleagues), it's easy to see all the great things in your life that are free. This shift from looking outward for material happiness to looking inward for true contentment comes from making small changes to reduce the clutter and busy-ness in your life. This change of pace sheds light on what truly matters to you and what is worthy of your time, energy, and savings.

In this next section, we'll look at ways to reframe how we use money for contentment and how you can live happily within your means using the minimalist approach to money. Keep an open mind about these methods and strategies as you streamline your life and home. Some of these ideas may initially seem radical or far-flung or just plain impossible in your current life. However, a little further into your minimalist journey, when your home is free of clutter and you have more than enough time for all the people and activities you enjoy, you may want to revisit this section for ways to trim your spending and financial obligations. The lure and joy of being able to Do Less quickly becomes a motivator for slashing bills and reducing your cost of living.

We each have our own unique money mindsets based on how we were raised and our history with money. We may have grand aspirations for wealth, or concrete retirement plans, or we might put a high value on having so-called disposable income. It might seem that minimalism can't possibly fit into all of these competing ideas and goals, but it can. We can all use minimalism to complement and help us reach our financial goals.

The first step to a minimalist money mindset is simply opening your mind to reshaping how you meet your goals. You need to get comfortable with being a bit uncomfortable and blow up some of your assumptions about how you have to spend your money. Just as you gave yourself some new eyes to reimagine what your home would look like without all that stuff, you'll now reimagine what your finances would look like if you had fewer obligations and more room for those goals and dreams.

Look closely at what you spend your money on. What is a need and what is a want? Beyond shelter, food, basic clothing, and medicine, everything else is usually a want. Yes, a haircut, going to the movies, that expensive blender that you just had to have to make smoothies—all wants. Some days it may feel like you really
need
that bigger television, but it is still firmly in the want category, along with five-dollar lattes and all-inclusive vacations.

Minimalism takes this line of questioning one step further to re-examine whether your needs truly are needs. For example, is your home in the need or want category? Could you live in something smaller, in a less expensive area? Could you move closer to work and reduce your commute and vehicle costs? If you moved into something smaller closer to your job, could you:

• Save an hour of driving a day?
  
• Save $500 in rent or mortgage payments a month?
  
• Save another $200 in vehicle costs a month?
  
• Use the freed-up time to exercise, get more sleep, or take up a hobby that you've been missing?
  
• Finally take that course you've wanted to take for a few years, the one that could lead to a career transition?
  
• Pay off those pesky student loans in a few years instead of twenty?
  
• Meet your retirement savings goals or have the cash to take that long-dreamed-of vacation?
  
• Finally have some breathing room in your budget?
  

As you can see, even within your “need” to have a house, there is a lot of leeway to live well on less. Moving is a big commitment, but it can bring quick and dramatic change to those who are short on time and money.

The smaller wants in your life are usually masquerading as needs—expensive cell phones, new cars, and weekly Saturday night babysitters for dinners with friends. Tally up what your wants amount to for a month. Count everything that you don't truly need, including home Internet service, the lawn mowing service, and the monthly grooming service for your dog. It can be astounding to see how the small extras—the upgrades, the things we often think of as being needs rather than wants—eat up your dollars.

Now, if you're frightened about letting it all go—if you're scared that minimalism will mean a hard bed, gruel for dinner, and no heat in the winter—relax. There will still be room in your minimalist life for luxuries and comforts. The difference is that you will be thoughtful about these luxuries and comforts and they'll align with your value spending (more on that next).

The big upside to this approach: you'll enjoy those small luxuries more because you conscientiously decided to keep them in your life. You'll also enjoy your small luxuries more when you have them less frequently. Takeout pizza tastes best when you haven't had it in a few months, and the ease of taking a taxi somewhere is so much more enjoyable when you make the effort to walk or take the bus daily. By buying everyday luxuries less frequently, you'll save money and make those small treats you once took for granted feel like large extravagances.