to envy my friends stripped back life?

[lifeontheotherside]

I am just back from visiting my friend over the weekend and was struck by how lovely her life is compared to mine. She lives in an excouncil house in a semi rural area, with beautiful woods and countryside on her doorstep, she doesn't have a job but works from home part time on a hobby that also provides her an income. Her husband has a professional job, earns a good wage and they live well below their means so they always have money for treats and luxuries like a couple of holidays a year, nice skincare, books etc without buying into a lifestyle they don't want. She has quite a stripped down social calander and only makes time for people and things she really likes.

She seems to have the time to bake cakes, cook from scratch daily, read, exercise, have quality time with her husband. She looks about 15 years younger than me and I am the same age! I live in the city and juggle fulltime work, a 5 year old, my relationship, my social life, parents etc all on the fumes of my empty tank. My rent is very expensive for a pokey flat and even though I live in the city I spend hours a day commuting to and from work!

When I get home I don't even want to think about food so my diet is crap and I have no time for the gym. I feel like I am missing my son growing up and the stress of everything I have to do means I often don't enjoy my life very much. I can feel a sense of satisfaction if I meet a deadline or if my son seems happy but its mostly short lived as there is always something else to cope with!

My husband and I don't spend a lot of time together. I tend to veg out infront of some crap telly while he is on his laptop. We both like to be social and put pressure on ourselves to always be out doing something and challenging ourselves but again we just end up dragging ourselves through things we are meant to enjoy rather than truly enjoying it.

For many years I felt my friend was living a very limited life but now I can see that she was trying to make a life that would satisfy her and be a life she could actively enjoy instead of running around always on the go, too busy to really experiance it.

When I look around at my friends and workmates it seems like most people are just always on the go, exhausted, using or food to cope, not having the time or energy to enjoy their loved ones and children or to just be. I envy my friend her ability to see all that at a young age and take her life in a different direction but I think i'd be too scared to follow suit. I know I depend on my job for my identity and self worth, I worry that if our lives slowed down my marriage would fail or that I wouldn't have the inner recources to make a life for myself outside the mainstream life script.

I thought i was succeeding but now at 40 I wonder if I really made any choices at all. Does anyone else feel like this?

Yes it makes more sense on paper! In reality London is where our lives are and it'd be a wrench. It might work out or I might be stuck in a beautiful house baking 25 cakes a week and wondering wtf I'm doing with my life!

Whenever we visit friends out of town (I live in Paris rather than London) I sometimes come away feeling a bit like the OP (especially on a sunny afternoon). The feeling usually lasts until I am sitting at the station waiting for the train back into the city. Now it's become a joke between DS and I - we get to the station, I look at him and he says "No!" I no longer even need to ask the question.

Spot on windygallows. There’s a lot of smugness in this thread.

Let’s be honest

1. the vast majority of the people in this country (and not on this MN thread) do not have the option of retiring at 50 or being supported by a wealthy spouse or saving rent by moving into a nice council
   house.

2. thank God the vast majority of people don’t do this or else the country would fall apart. We do not need or want any more aromatherapists or people making handmade tat to flog on Facebook*.

What we need are people like you OP. You should be really proud of yourself. You are making a valuable contribution to the economy and society - you have a proper job, you are paying taxes, you are bringing up a child (well, from the sounds of it). If it wasn’t for people like you, working full time in offices, laboratories, classrooms, factories, warehouses, clinics, what quality of life would we all have then? Who would be able to buy the mysterious creative output made by your friend if everyone lived off allotment veg and benefits and spent all day walking the dog? Sure, we can all make tweaks to our lives, but there’s nothing especially virtuous or clever about effectively opting out of useful economic activity.

*I went to college in a wealthy town in the US where the high street was full of galleries selling ghastly tchotchkes made by wealthy men’s wives who literally had nothing better to do with their time. The shop rent cost more than their takings.

I get that you don’t like anyone criticising your friend OP, but I am a teeny bit suspicious of her claim that she earns a living from doing what she does, and that she could live on it (after deducting costs) if she didn’t have her husbands income. I’m not saying she’s lying but I wouldn’t necessarily take it at face value...

good post pickle! It's like all those annoying fits on location location location who have a gazillion pound budget to fund somewhere fabulously remote and they're going to fund the mortgage making homemade jam. How???

lurk
No idea.

Those everything-free handmade artisanal brownies they have in farm shops and organic grocers that come with a little ribbon and cost eleventy quid for a piece the size of thumbnail. Who buys those?

Pickle

I'm so with you. They are always so fucking virtuous and skinny. They then tilt their head, giving you a look of pity, because you eat chocolate which explains why your skin doesn't glow and your arse resembles orange peel.

I want to scream 'sweetheart, I've had 3/4/5 hours of sleep, my kid just spent the night throwing up on me and I've got a board meeting or a side meeting with someone on the board which I'm not really prepared for. I don't have a nanny to watch my kids while I nap. I don't eat the freshest food cooked from scratch (whatever that's supposed to mean anyway) and I don't always exercise unless you count running after the DC, running for the bus, car, train or after the dog as exercise. Oh and my arse looks like orange peel because I spend 15 hours a day sitting on it and no I don't want to spend my hard earned money on your dumb business. Get a damn job like everyone else does.'

Rant over.

There is an entire community of people who have been smart enough to work out that if you just buy what you need and live frugally you can retire in your 30's. I am totally envious of them and wish I had learned that at 22!! We can always sell our expensive home and do something similar although we will be working till our 50s despite living frugally and saving every $ we can. I think you envy your friend because she has pulled off the enviable- freedom from the bondage of work.
www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-beginning-of-time/

Seems to me there's smugness on both sides, reading the last few posts.

There is nothing inherently virtuous about working yourself to your mental bone ( probably to generate profit for someone else in the final analysis-unless you work in public service jobs which most don't) and spending precious hours of your life commuting to do that.
I admire people who have managed to get out of the tireless pursuit of money for over inflated mortgages on overpriced houses for what??
They are the smart ones and they are wise enough to have realised that their identity is not based in their job title or salary or 'contribution' to the economy. No doubt on their death beds they will have less regrets than many will have.

I work hard to provide for my family. I have two disabled DC and I'm not willing to accept the low standard of care the government thinks is acceptable. Their care will therefore need to be funded by us.

lucky How the heck is it virtuous to let your OH work hard and take on the stress of providing so you don't have to? That's what we are talking about here.

Mokolo Nothing smug about my post. I'm very much someone who has worked very hard to be able to spend more time with my DC. I don't have to work. If I didn't do my job I'd probably work for a charity or two during school hours. Possibly for no money.

There are things you can control in life and things you can't. It makes no sense to envy the stuff you can't control. And if you can control it, change, then you won't envy it any more.

I have friends in a better position than me and friends in a worse position, but it doesn't seem to have much bearing on their happiness either way.

As an example: one friend owns a Spanish restaurant. It is tiny and cute and moderately successful. She runs the restaurant, husband cooks and they are also both artists and when it's quiet they do art and run classes. It is honestly my dream to own such a place. But she CONSTANTLY complains that her parents nag her about her life because they're the ones funding the restaurant and who gave her the capital to start it. She is beholden to them and she has no sense of achievement. She is one of the unhappiest people I know (to the point where I keep my distance these days). So I could be jealous cos she is living my dream, but you know, it's not how it looks.

As for me - I have friends who are always saying they are jel of this or that, but they do nothing to achieve things or they don't see that it's a compromise. eg My husband and I cycle a lot - we usually cycle, bring our tent etc, camp, then cycle back next day. The number of friends who are WELL JEL and WOULD LOVE to do such a trip is huge. But when I say 'ok, then next time, come with us, we leave at 5AM and cycle for 25km-50km and then the same on the way back', that's 'too early', 'too far' etc. Well, then you wouldn't LOVE it, then! Part of the trip is that you have to sacrifice going out that night, you have to get up before sunrise and you have to cycle a lot!

Or I have friends who are SO JEL that I can speak another language fluently. Yes, I am proud that I can, but it took months and months of never going out, getting up before work every day to study for an hour, not drinking, not watching TV etc because I wanted to be able to be fluent. I didn't just wake up fluent one day. But they don't want to sacrifice their lie in, their Friday night out, chilling on the sofa. If you're happy doing that, that's fine, but don't be surprised when you're not suddenly fluent in a language.

It's the same for you OP. If you want to bake bread, bake it. And if you don't have time or energy or whatever, then either make time or accept it. But if you go through life always wanting something else, you will always be miserable.

What amazes me is how many people say yes to shit they don't want to do. I don't give a shit about offending anyone by saying no to them. That's their problem not mine, I'm not doing stuff I don't enjoy to make someone else happy. I don't give a shit if someone else thinks my lifestyle is shit or boring or whatever.

And I think that's a massive part of it. People don't WANT to be in the ratrace, but they're SO scared of what everyone else will think if they drop out and become a cleaner. They don't want to go to that party, but they're scared they'll never be invited to anything else again if they say no. They don't want to pay for a massive mortgage, but if they downsize, they think everyone will judge them. I honestly pity people like that. It's so childish to worry about that kind of stuff to any kind of excessive level. You're born, you live, you die, and no one is going to remember that you had a massive house and a BMW so you might as well stop getting into debt to buy all that crap.

EVERYTHING in life is a choice and every choice has ups and downs. There is shit we just can't change - I wasn't born in a rich or even middle class family and that put me at a massive disadvantage, but I can't change that. I could look at my posher friends and envy them, but what would that achieve? It's not going to change and half of them are miserable anyway.

Besides which, I would no sooner waft about baking bread and making candles while my husband works his ass off than dance naked in the high street. I find that a really horrible way to live and imo the husband ALWAYS ends up resenting you, even if he says he won't. I think there's something dehumanising about spending someone else's money.

I also feel like - people get their self worth from the wrong places. From their job, from their social circle (of people they don't really like), from having the big car, the big house.

My mum always says she has no idea where I got my confidence from - she and my father both have no self esteem whereas I have always felt like I am the equal of everyone else on the planet. I don't look down on anyone, but I'm not scared of anyone either. There's been times when I've been very shy, I get social anxiety at times even, but I definitely do not feel like changing my job or getting a big car or going to a million parties is going to make me a better, more interesting or more worthwhile person. I could live on a desert island or a council estate or in Buckingham Palace and I would feel the same about myself.

Your job and your money can be gone in an instant. The number of people who truly care about you is probably depressingly small. There will always be someone with a bigger car, a nicer house, more free time, a fancier job title. None of that stuff matters at all. But for some people, it's the be all and end all.

I had the fancy job and the mortgaged town house. Then things started chipping away at me like the realisation that my job was just making rich people richer (company one of those oft-cited tax avoiders), the house a millstone around my neck (literal translation in French (?) Is "death pledge") and I became utterly worn down.

I was lucky enough that I travelled extensively in my youth, lived and worked abroad for many years and lived life at 100mph - so I didn't feel that yearning for more, because I'd already done it. It came to a point where I needed to slow down and take care of my mental health and make that a priority.

I do actually feel a little smug I suppose, because I live a life of pottering and it has undoubtedly improved my health. But I'm not daft enough to think others would agree. My own family think I'm a Easter and that I should go back to work in an office FT and stick the kids in childcare. Nobody ever wins, we can only do what works for each of us on an individual level.

MrsKeats "I also get irked when people say we are ‘lucky’ to earn well. Luck hasn’t really figured into it."

I mean, a lot of it is luck though. If you have supportive parents (or even just non-abusive parents), are mentally and physically well, were born in a rich country, and have the natural aptitude to do well at work, you have a hell of a lot more luck than a lot of people. That's why the vast vast majority of people in top positions in the UK are white, middle class men who went to Oxbridge.

Everyone is playing on a different level. It's not to say people don't work hard, but add in any factor like race, abuse, poverty etc and it's going to be way harder.

“There is an entire community of people who have been smart enough to work out that if you just buy what you need and live frugally you can retire in your 30's”

Financially supporting yourself for 50 more years with what, mung beans?

It is about choices and having the willingness, spouse in agreement, and good luck to carry them out. My Dad could have worked in the City commuted etc like his friends who all did well , big house high salary etc. He also did not go into the army although he came from an army family, he said he could never have the power to pull the trigger and kill someone , so reckoned it was not possible to join. Instead apart from two stints in London head office he spent most of his life abroad assisting developing agriculture in tropical countries. Lower pay, but he saw the world and reckoned he had a better but less luxurious life. The stress levels were different but still as stressful as the City maybe more. (We had an amazing upbringing and saw so much.) He said the scariest thing on his second stint in head office about 20 years after the first was that on the commuter train it was all the same faces, in the same seats, but older and still viewing the same dull journey.

“There is an entire community of people who have been smart enough to work out that if you just buy what you need and live frugally you can retire in your 30's”

I guess you could retire in your 30s if you had a really good job in your 20s, and you did something like set up a website that basically runs itself that makes you money. Having parents who own a house etc probably wouldn't hurt either.

But realistically, it's very unlikely to be a possibility for most people.

I think it's actually really insulting when people act like most people could do this stuff, they're just too lazy/stupid.

trudi that's the thing, your dad had a wife.

Women don't tend to have wives. They tend to have husbands who are not as willing to support their every career decision, take care of the kids etc.

Wonderful. Some people will manage to turn almost any thread into an excuse for sahm bashing

Too many are focusing on full time work vs hobby or part-time work. Hobby work is also a sneers phrase so what if you enjoy your work and it's also your hobby. It is no less a real job if it pays you enough to live on.

Simplifying your life may mean that for you, you still work full time but you give your self time and space in other areas. It may may part time or it may mean full time plus 20 hours for ten years to save for the part time years that you plan to come.

It may mean saying no to invites, where you didn't really want to go.

It's different for everyone, some would bake, some would walk the hills, I would give myself the freedom to watch a boxset in the afternoon.
It's our lives.

Many can live on part time wages and those talking about economic activity are wrong. The whole country could be part time in most roles and still be productive. In fact, most research shows that most people given more time to themselves are actually more productive.

It's ideological why full time work is touted as the norm.
Very roles actually need the worker, to work at the job full time.

Also, the government actually saves money in the NHS and social care when people work part time. There is more time for families to care for their members without outside help, less stress throughout so less spent on stress related illnesses, including the obvious like depression, anxiety, obesity and dementia.

Less spent on physical illness caused and made worse by stress like heart disease.

The only reason a citizens wage or a more global move to part time work would not work, is because of capitalism.

If you consume and buy less then in most cases, you can work less. At this moment in time, this is not the case for everyone due to high rents and housing costs. Which is again because of capitalistic government policy.

However if families member worked part time then childcare costs would be less. Carer costs would be less. They would still have time to seek pursuits that nourished them as an individual.

As humans we do not need all the material things constantly advertised to us. It is not smug for pp on this thread to say they live a simpler life.

We have been fed a line about full time hardworking people and it's a lie to keep us working, without time to look at the bigger picture and to keep us consuming and making big business richer.

We only need to look across the pond at the US work life balance and consumption rates.

I would rather work part time, save money where possible in work related costs and spend less overall especially hiring out for things that I would rather do myself like gardening or cleaning.

And yes this may be some peoples idea of a nightmare but fine, there should be good full-time work for those who want it. But where the country goes wrong is in touting part time work as lazy or as less ambitious or as less productive.

Lots also focus on the city vs countryside but these principles of making time for yourself and consuming less, can be lived anywhere.

Besides which, I would no sooner waft about baking bread and making candles while my husband works his ass off than dance naked in the high street. I find that a really horrible way to live and imo the husband ALWAYS ends up resenting you, even if he says he won't. I think there's something dehumanising about spending someone else's money.

I am 100% sure my husband doesn't resent me. Why would he, he's had the freedom to totally focus on his career and then his business for 25 years. He has a happy unstressed wife, happy chilled kids, a clean house, homecooked food

And now he's retired in his mid fifties, he picks up at least 50% of the domestic stuff so my life is even easier.

And I have never felt remotely dehumanised spending the money he earned; he was only able to earn it due to my contribution. And, unlike some women on this thread, he puts a high value on "wifework".

And interestingly, our best friends of 30 years have lived exactly the same sort of lives, with the same set up as us. Only in their case the wife focussed on her career, whilst the husband did the domestic stuff. She absolutely doesn't resent him either; dinner on the table, five clean and ironed shirts in her wardrobe every Monday. She loves her job and her freedom to focus on it.

I don't care how many people deny it but it's kids which are the game changer...childless people can equally have pressurised lives and responsibilities but nothing is as comparable or unescapable as children.

Besides which, I would no sooner waft about baking bread and making candles while my husband works his ass off than dance naked in the high street. I find that a really horrible way to live and imo the husband ALWAYS ends up resenting you, even if he says he won't. I think there's something dehumanising about spending someone else's money.

I am 100% sure my husband doesn't resent me. Why would he, he's had the freedom to totally focus on his career and then his business for 25 years. He has a happy unstressed wife, happy chilled kids, a clean house, homecooked food

There's a huge difference between being a sahm and being a childfree housewife.

I'm a sahm of school age children. I'm pretty busy with ferrying them around, housework, laundry, cooking etc.

If I was a housewife with no dc, I'd have a whale of a time! But no way would I consider it acceptable to stay at home, live off my husband and not have children. That is a pisstake.

tinkly I'm not talking about staying home to look after the kids, I'm talking about the OP, where it appears there are no kids.