Time Over Money | Living With Less, Being Resourceful & Building Sustainable Lifestyles

We're told that "money makes the world go round" but there are ways to change your views on spending and saving money in a way that prioritises your time, contentment and living the more flexible life that you always wanted. It never feels good to be governed by money, so let's talk about being more resourceful, changing consumer habits and finding some balance between time and money.

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Music by

Orange Sunshine by Bare Jams

Wasting Time by Bare Jams

Sunny Day by Lee Bond

The Bunker by Lee Bond

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Learning to live with less, utilising the resources around you and prioritising time over money is a passage that many people go through. I've been through it many times before as a freelancer and now I'm stepping into it again. It feels great, but it's not always easy. Hello everyone and welcome back to The Man Who Grew, a podcast about growing, not just vegetables and flowers, but growing yourself as a human being. This podcast is following my raw and very real journey as I transition from this office worker into a more hands-on manual outside guy, being more productive and more engaged in the real world. At the same time, I'm transforming the land in my garden from this empty space into a homestead into a permaculture garden which is going to be thriving and full of life that's the plan and today we're talking about money not my favorite topic i don't like the word it scares me but that's even more reason to talk about it let's get into it Let's begin today's episode just by looking at the background of my relationship with money, because I'm sure many of you relate to some of the stories I'm about to tell. How I learned the value of money, how I spent my money as a kid and as an adult, maybe some of the mistakes that led to this financial anxiety that I have quite often these days. And I'll connect it to our modern day lifestyle. Freedom! Freedom! my dad it was only a matter of time before he popped up in this podcast when i was a kid my dad was really organized with money i think he still is to this day and he tried his best bless him to get me to follow the same principles from quite an early age but i was young i didn't want to listen to my parents so i didn't really take everything into account one thing i do remember is It's learning the value of money. That was good. If I wanted some pocket money, I had the chance to earn more or less depending on how hard I worked, which sounds a little bit like child labor now, dad, doesn't it? There was a little chart in the kitchen for the whole week and I could earn 20 pence in the morning for doing the dishes and 20 pence in the evening for doing the dishes each day. So at the end of the week, there was a, I can't do maths that quickly, but quite a lot of money in the pot if I wanted it. And if I didn't want to do the dishes, I didn't get any money. I also had a paper round when I was younger, when I was quite young. Again, too young for a job, I think. And I used to cycle down to the local corner shop, pick up some newspapers every morning before school, and do a paper round, quite a long one usually, all the way around the village. I remember one of my friends on a Monday morning, it was pouring down with rain, and he got his mum to take him in the car on the paper round. I thought, wow, that's nice. So the next day it was raining, I'm sure I asked my dad, hey dad, can I get a lift around today? It's pouring down. And I'm pretty sure he just laughed in my face and said, get on your bike. But those were good lessons. I learned that I had to work hard for money. And when we talk about spending money as a kid, I can't really say that there were any mistakes or regrets because you're young and you're learning different interests. So you buy stuff like CDs. I bought football shirts and it's not a big problem. As I got older and I had a few more responsibilities and things that I needed to pay for. That's the time where I became a little careless with spending. I was living on each paycheck, not really saving much money. And I had this idea that I'm going to save up and spend it all on traveling around the world. And I did that a couple of times, to be honest. It was a little bit careless. I was also going out drinking a lot and spending a lot of money on beer and nightclubs and whatever. But in all honesty, it wasn't much different to the average person. But at some point, something unexpected happened and I needed to borrow some money. And my relationship with money ever since that day deteriorated. The security around money spiraled out of control a little bit and it left me with a small trauma from it. Now, I make that sound like I got into serious, serious money issues and I didn't, but it was enough just to not feel comfortable. And so now, anytime I talk about money, I still go back to those moments. Eventually, with a bit of support, I managed to pay off those debts that I owed, cut out my credit cards and thought, I'm never doing that again. But I was left with this financial anxiety, which is still a big challenge for me. But it became even more of a challenge when I decided to live this lifestyle where I want to be free and flexible and work for myself. And of course, I have a lot more responsibilities these days. Our values and principles and behaviors and activities and our mindset on things like money changes with the experiences that we have. And it's led me to think very carefully about what I want, what I need and how I want to live my life.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

If

SPEAKER_00: 5:47

you don't know, my work at the moment is as an online English teacher. I teach, I sometimes do some voiceover projects, I do a little bit of video presentation as well but I've been a freelancer for the last six or seven years. Obviously that comes with its own challenges. Any freelancers out there will know that you get these waves of good business and sometimes there can be a little lull where you start to get a little bit worried about where's the next paycheck coming from and it's all on you. Of course I've learned to trust in that and I found different methods to market myself better and alleviate those stresses but it can be really tough. Lucky I have Cecilia here to remind me that everything will be great. And it usually is. But my message today is to tell you how it's possible to be calm even when we have these periods of low income and we don't seem to have as much money, maybe as we would like to have. So the lifestyle that we've chosen to live, the fact that we value time and our freedom from modern day pressures is so important to us that we are willing to minimize, reduce, cut back and compromise areas of our life, especially those areas related to consumerism. The lifestyle we want revolves around not working ourselves to the bone, not giving all of our time to a job just for the salary, and instead to focus on living every day as satisfied and happy as we can with how we're spending our time. I don't want to live five days in a miserable job and then two days of relief. I don't like the sound of that ratio. And okay, you don't have to be in a miserable job. Some of you may love your jobs. But if you're there just because it pays for your weekend and it pays for your holidays, Well, then we probably need to step back and look at that old cliche that life is short and you will run out of days eventually. This is a thought that's always on my mind and it's not in a depressing way. It's just a simple fact to help me get more perspective. This is also something that I learned from my father later. I watched him working his ass off, stressed, uptight, I hope it's right to say that dad, and then retire early. as his values changed, and now he lives in a small house, he has a sensible car, and therefore he was able to retire early, and he can do and go wherever he wants really. Now he's not made of money, but he has his priorities in order. When my dad was working part-time just before he retired, I remember him telling me about an old work colleague who used to express envy at him every time he was going away somewhere on a Tuesday afternoon, cycling somewhere, getting on a train, having a little trip in England. He would say, Oh, lucky you, you can travel everywhere, you've got so much free time. But luck wasn't anything to do with it. That guy was spending money on expanding his house, installing hot tubs in the garden, buying a new car every few years, going on expensive holidays and eating out. So yeah, you're going to have to work extra hours. You're going to have to be tired and exhausted and you won't escape those feelings of being chained to something that you don't really want to be doing. Simply put, my father and I I've both swapped money for time. We both had to learn the hard way, but that's normal. And I'm just glad that we made the changes. I want to talk to you a little bit about making conscious decisions when it comes to spending, having a sustainable mindset and a little bit about self-sufficiency. So what can we do to live a lifestyle that gives us more time and freedom to do the things that we want to do with the people that we want to be with? Firstly, let's talk about food. Now, we care a lot about the food that we eat. And of course, we could cut costs just by going to the supermarket and buying the cheapest food available. but we're never going to do this because it means too much to us. We really value quality, healthy, often organic or at least locally produced food. And of course, this comes with a cost. It's the area of our life we are most likely to spend extra money on. But we are in the process of finding more sustainable ways to manage our food spending too. Being self-sufficient is not only about this personal growth challenge, and by learning how to grow our own food, we're of course going to save money. On top of this... We know where our food came from. We know it's healthy. We are part of the process, which always feels good. We get to be outside. And in extreme cases, it's a security. Honestly, I want to get to the point where in a hypothetical situation of there being, I don't know, a national or global food shortage, that I'll be okay because we've learned to be independent and look after ourselves. That's not my main reason, of course. I'm not doing this out of irrational fear. Although I would like to build a bunker at the bottom of the garden. Ceci's not so keen, but it's a better escape room than the bathroom and no kids will find me there. Would you build me a bunker at the bottom of the garden? Use the bracken and the branches, save some scraps for when we're starving. So that's a bit too extreme, but yeah, we are definitely heading in that direction, even if we're in the early stages. I like the goal of trying to become 50% self-sufficient with our food supply. That is a really tough challenge, but a great thing to work on. It's not just growing our own food either. We don't spend money on restaurants much these days. because we'd rather spend time cooking a tasty homemade meal and sitting down as a family to enjoy it. Or baking our own bread and washing it down with some homemade juice or tea that we've made. We really get a lot of pleasure in those things and the feeling is deeper somehow. We go into the forest and forage for berries and mushrooms because it's a great way to spend time and we're rewarded with wild healthy food whilst learning and teaching along the way. I want to give you a recent example of how we've taken a small but quite regular expense and turned it into something more sustainable. It's not a big saving, but you can just see the way that we think. Stock cubes, not a big expense at all, but it's something that we use quite a lot when we're cooking and even the small things can be looked at in another way. So Cecilia bought a bag of bones. I never thought I would say that sentence. She bought a bag of bones to make her own Bone broth. I can't say this. It's like a tongue twister. So Cecilia bought a bag of bones to make her own bone broth. And it was very cheap in comparison to supermarket stock cubes. We cooked the bones. We made a very large amount of broth, which will last for many months. And you might think, you know, doesn't that take a lot of time and effort? And yes, it does take some time. But of course, you're not going to benefit from any of this unless you invest a little bit of time and effort first. But we didn't stop there. We still had the bones at the end, and we found a way to use them for some arts and crafts. Cecilia actually made a bone wind chime, which my son thought was a bit weird. And okay, it was just a bit of fun, but you try being creative with a supermarket stock cube package instead. Not so easy. My point here is that we took one item and we utilized it in so many ways. We even looked up the process of grinding the bones down into a powder and using it as a really effective organic fertilizer in the garden, which would help us to grow more vegetables. These were the bones that just kept on giving. And this is the level of sustainability we're starting to use in all areas of our food world. There's a lot to learn, of course, and a lot of researching needed at the moment. But the mindset towards this is becoming a habit for both of us. Recently, my income has naturally dropped a little bit because I'm making this transition into a new project. I'm working on a podcast, I'm providing some content and I've reduced my English lessons a little bit. Now, of course, that anxiety for me personally creeps in sometimes, but we're trying to alleviate any stress that comes with it by changing a few things. We've learned to cook and use food sensibly and get really creative with the meals at the moment, just in order to cut a few costs and make use of the food that we have in the house. I've actually really enjoyed it. It's taught us how to think more consciously about mealtime, to cook hearty seasonal meals, to be more resourceful and to appreciate food a little bit more. We've been getting quite creative with all those food items hidden at the back of your cupboard. You know, like the sad bag of couscous that just got thrown into the darkness, never to see light again. Suddenly, he's in the saucepan. He's loving life. Welcome to the party, couscous. One thing that's harder to get used to is how we used to spend a lot of money on having like ice cream as a treat in the house or some expensive bread. But of course, this costs a lot of money. So now we bake our own bread, but we don't really have the treats anymore. So if I'm hungry, I come home from football. I'm like, oh God, I just need a nice comfort food snack. And I open the fridge like the day before we're supposed to go shopping and there is nothing. There's just like a little bowl of spaghetti left over from lunchtime. and a cold boiled egg in the door. No one wants a cold boiled egg as comfort food. And don't worry, we do still treat ourselves occasionally. Let's move on and talk about clothes. Of course, when you're young, you care a lot about fashion, and some adults do too actually. And that's fine, everyone has their own interests, but it's not really my priority personally. Now with all these things, we don't want to compromise too much and wear, for example, rags every day. We do have some standards related to self-presentation. But again, we try to think a little bit more sensibly about what we actually need and the longevity of the clothes that we buy. So for example, here in Finland, it can reach minus 30 degrees in the winter. So you don't want to start wearing a thin jacket in January just to save yourself 100 euros. You'll end up dying. Your gravestone will say, died trying to save 100 euros on a decent winter jacket. So instead we think about the most essential items and just reduce our spending on unnecessary impulse buys. Do I really need a pair of new jeans right now? Or this fancy looking shirt for 70 euros? No, because I'm not dressing up in office wear and I don't go to restaurants that often so I need to think twice about it. Do I need to spend 200 euros on a jumper made of 100% Norwegian sheep wool? Yes, because it's useful in these blisteringly cold winters. And now I have the money for it because I didn't buy that shirt. Knitting my own jumper from my own sheep. That's the next step. I'll put that on the list. What we're talking about here, I'm not trying to teach you how to suck eggs. It's not rocket science, but you still have to be a little bit conscious about these things. And it's all about adding to the bigger goal. What do you actually want your money for? For me, it's about making this lifestyle sustainable. which for me is more important than anything else. Yesterday was funny. I went downstairs. My wife, my mother-in-law and my son were sat at the table fixing items of clothing. First, I thought I'd got into some kind of time machine and gone back a couple of centuries. But then I thought, no, this is nice. This is how it should be. Using our skills, reusing, fixing stuff and not jumping straight to that. I must buy more, more, more, more. And at the same time, I don't want less, less, less either. I just want to be a bit smarter and less wasteful.

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

All right,

SPEAKER_00: 17:15

what's up next? Holidays. Let's talk about holidays. In the last episode, we talked about contentment. And although we still talk and dream about taking a few trips as a family, it's never thought of as something essential. It's never as an escape from our lives because we're so stressed and need to get away. It was in the past, big time. I went backpacking a few times around the world and in hindsight, there was an element of escapism about that. And it cost a lot of money and it led to a lot of careless decisions. It also led me to Sweden, where I met my wife and eventually had beautiful children, so I'm not going to just regret those things, but I do want to learn from the negative parts of those actions and take more care of my contentment. Now we're not travelling so far, because the kids are small of course, but we choose to go on some smaller trips, understanding that there are other priorities at the moment. It's about reducing and understanding what's more important to you at any given time. I think it's a conversation that should be constantly on the table as we move through life. Now, the next category, I wrote down car. Do we spend much money on our car? No, because we don't have a car. We only use horses. I ride across the barren Finnish land for days, hunting wild deer, sleeping under the stars. And then I make my way to the city where I deliver a message on horseback or collect supplies. No, not really. We haven't quite reached that point, but I do get it that a lot of the choices that we're talking about maybe are reconnecting to the way that we used to live. Of course, there was less choice back then and the struggles were very real, whereas now we're making a choice. But the way we're living is definitely rooted with some of those older, more traditional methods. Feels like we're getting back to basics, to the root of being human, where we're not ignoring the resources that nature provides us. And instead, we're paying attention to it and saying, hey, we can use that. and finding ways to coexist. Have you noticed I haven't mentioned the words eco-friendly or environmentally friendly in this episode so far? Because I didn't want to make it all about that. It might sound a bit selfish, but all these decisions are about us, our choices, and the life that we want to live, about being independent and self-sufficient. And that's an individual thing. The great thing is that the environment and the nature around us will also benefit. So I'm choosing not to chain myself to a tree or make a big song and dance about the issues in the world. And instead, I'm just going to focus on what I can do to change it and hopefully show others that by focusing on changing the small things within our own lives can actually benefit the world and others around us. So am I still anxious about money? Yeah, a bit, because I'm still on this journey. And I'm still feeling the impact of my past experiences related to money. And I'm still working for myself. So I feel the pressure of having to supply and support the family. But in the same way that I won't compromise comfort just to save money, I also won't compromise my own happiness of everyday living to go and slave away for a paycheck. Those days are long gone for me. I'm trusting that we're moving in the right direction towards a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle on horseback.

UNKNOWN: 20:29

Music

SPEAKER_00: 20:44

I would love to hear your thoughts. is also the man who grew. Keep on growing, everyone. Thank you for listening today. I'm going outside in the sunshine to plant some more strawberry plants. Have a great week. See ya. would you build me a bunker at the bottom of the garden use the bracken and the branches save some scraps for when we're starving I don't mean to pessimize but at the end of the day it's just the end of the world and there's nothing more to say about it follow me regardless bring the breadcrumbs and your hat we could weave between the tallest trees you could argue tit for tat with me about everything and nothing all at once i saw you twice looking three times in the mirror asking for some good advice and we're nearly there but we're lost at the edge of the forest deer and i'm afraid there's no way out The path that we have trodden Over weathered rocks and streams These rubber boots are useless Sudden socks and achy feet I'm a wanderer, a passerby I wish that you could see This is where I plan to live It's a place for you and me to be Someone we've not met yet And I'm told you sometimes feel Like a lone wolf in the woods Hunting questions and a meaning When you lie And I'm afraid there's no way out

UNKNOWN: 23:18

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