Sasee Magazine

“I wish I could work part-time,” she sighed, “But we can’t afford it.” Her tired, lackluster eyes told the rest of the story. The plague of ‘not enough time’ was a burden for women everywhere; she was no exception, and neither was I.

It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy working, I loved working. I loved the adrenalin rush of pulling off a challenge with minutes to spare. I loved the warm glow of satisfaction after my appreciative customer begged to hug me. I loved the delicious sense of self pride that would consume me whenever my manager gushed about what a difference I had made in their life. I loved the Friday feeling. And I loved the paycheck.

What I didn’t love was the constant rush. Despite my best intentions to leave work on time (which rarely happened), inevitably it would be late evening before dinner was on the table, eaten, off the table and cleared. What I didn’t love was sitting at my desk fighting to stay awake long enough to balance the checkbook and pay the bills. What I didn’t love was never having enough time to exercise, yet constantly beating myself up about it. What I didn’t love was spending weekends cleaning and doing laundry, and then joining the masses of full-timers who have no choice but to use their weekends to run errands and do grocery shopping, grabbing snippets of relaxation in the pages of a magazine while standing in slow-moving check-out lines, leaning on carts overflowing with groceries that would take another hour to carry in and put away. What I didn’t love was that weeks were slipping into years. There was a lot about full-time work I didn’t love, but part-time was not an option, or was it?

In reality, my husband and I had never sat down to crunch the numbers. Nor had we ever calculated how much money we really needed. Whatever that magic number was, we had no idea. We did, however, know how much money we preferred to live on – what we earned now, or more. Did we maintain our busy, both-of-us-working lifestyle because of the money, or was it really because that was all we knew? In all our married years, we had always juggled full-time jobs and leisurely lifestyles were relegated to the ‘wishful thinking’ category. As you get older, routine becomes scarily addictive, even a busy one, and there’s a certain comfort in ‘the devil you know.’ Deep down, we both knew we could live on less; after all, we hadn’t earned this kind of money or lived this kind of lifestyle when we first met. The problem was not what we could do, but what we couldn’t – make the decision to break the only routine we had ever known.

Then, everything changed – my husband’s company downsized. We had a few months before the job (and paycheck) would end, giving us time to plan, job search, and more importantly, think. Once we started, we couldn’t stop. Thoughts of going back to college, changing careers and traveling swirled through our heads. In the absence of our jobs, we also realized there was nothing about where we lived that made us want to stay. Then we sat down and calculated how much money we truly needed. There is a blurry line that exists between what one needs and what one wants. Our line was so blurred we wondered if we ever had one.

What if we didn’t have to spend every weekend cooking, cleaning and shopping? What if one of us went part-time and was able to take care of all the ‘housey’ stuff during the week, leaving the weekends free to relax, have fun and do more than just order pizza and watch a movie? What if it meant one of us would be free to handle the headache and hassle next time the dishwasher broke down and flooded the kitchen floor? What if life simply slowed down? The thought rendered us giddy. An excitement swelled within us that we hadn’t felt since we had first dreamily planned a life together that had little to do with money and more to do with fun.

So we did it.

Our motto at the beginning was “Frugal is Fun.” I became financially smarter and wiser, teaching myself by reading books (that I never bought) at bookstores (that always had a coffee shop) on quiet weekday afternoons (because I could). I slashed hundreds of dollars from our insurance bills after researching and changing unnecessarily-high levels. We also cancelled warranties and different home expenses maintained for no other reason than a previous lack of time to study their worth, or shop around for better, smarter deals. Ignorance is convenient when you work full-time; it is also expensive.

We learned to live modestly – and manage with one vehicle. The huge savings made up for the occasional inconvenience; you just have to plan ahead. Admittedly, there has been furniture we never bought, restaurants we never experienced and dream trips that are still that – dreams. But for us, second to the decision to get married and maybe stop (and discover) that one consignment store which sells the best designer-brand clothing at prices so cheap it will make your hair curl, the decision for me to go part-time was the best we ever made.

So when you read this, instead of telling yourself part-time could never work for your situation, maybe ask yourself instead: Why not?

You never know, you might like it. And if you do, let me know. I know the best consignment store which you will want to rush to after you have indulged in a relaxing afternoon at your favorite bookstore, drinking cappuccino while you leisurely research more ways to save money.

Frugal really can be more fun.