Downshifting - Time is money

A different view of looking at your finances and income

To some people, downshifting is simply changing a career into a lower paid one, to others it's going into one specific new career but self employed and then there's those like me who downshift to 'whatever'.

By whatever I mean a more self-reliant lifestyle where you are more of a free agent in what you do and how you earn your money.

The financial side as in income is the key issue. It's quite simple, you need to have enough coming in to pay the overheads.

I have three sources of income; in Summer I am casual labour as in Dressing Room Attendant for Kent Cricket Club. This gives me around 90 days work a year.
I have a small pension and I do oddjobbing, mainly for one Client who lives close by.

With the first two, I know approximately how much I have coming in and these nearly pay the bills but certainly don't go toward any unforeseen Bills or other expenses.

My view on money is quite a simple one, I equate it into hours I need to work to pay for everything.

Let's say I'm half way through a month and something goes wrong with the car and it's going to cost me £300 to put it right.
Rather than see it simply as £300, I see it that I need to work an extra 30 hours (£10 an hour for simplicity sake).

Of course, this is all very well and good if you have a source to work that 30 hours, but if you have rounded up enough custom, they have a trust in your abilities and you've helped them out of a mess before, there's a strong chance that if you give them a call and ask if there's anything they need doing, there will be!

So, from this angle, the secret is to have a good number of 'clients' and a good wide diversity of work.
I made the mistake in my first year of downshifting where I was doing just gardening work of not allowing for two things - 1. You had to get to the job and back and 2. the weather.

If you have a a wider horizon in the work you can do both indoors and outdoors, you're able to go down the route of, if it's wet, you do indoor work and if it's dry, you do outside. In this country we have the great unknown in so far as weather goes. It can rain one day and be sunny the next.

There are many ways to supplement an income and the jobs I've done, or am doing, are featured in the Earning Extra Money section.

So, if we need £1,000 a month to pay our bills, see that as 100 hours or an average of 25 hours per week, you'll find yourself saying you were 4 hours short of break even this month or the extra ten hours you did gave you a credit of £100.

It doesn't always work, what system does, but it gives you a more visual guide to what you have to do and that gives in turn, the motivation to get on and do it.

What I would say if you're going down the route I've taken is, give yourself a base earning, like mine is with the Cricket job, that's coming in and as long as I don't blow it, it's a certain amount coming in and a foundation to build on.

Time is money and money is time, I've known this to my cost and to my benefit.

Finally I would say, if you've had a bad month, it's because of you, but if you've had a good month, that's because of you as well. Pride yourself in your success's and learn from the failures.

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A time to Work

Rest

and Play

'No matter in which direction a tree falls, it will lie where it fell. When the clouds are full, it rains. If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never sow anything and never harvest anything. Ecclesiastes 11.
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