Sometimes even this shuffler can make some pretty stupid decisions when it comes to his happiness levels.

You see…

I gleefully go about most of my weekends avoiding the use of my car at all costs. Just last weekend I rode my bike an hour and a half each way to visit my parents. Such is my commitment to avoiding car use. This all ties in nicely with my goal to be the ultimate shuffler and pull financial independence as close to me as possible.

However after a few months, I forget how bad driving here is and make a stupid decision….

The weekend just passed I must have turned my brain off for long enough to make plans for a picnic on the other side of the city. I then decided to drive there in the middle of the day on a Saturday.

3 hours of anxiety inducing commuting I will never get back.

If you don’t live in this steaming cesspool of a city then just let me clear something up for you.

Driving a car in Sydney at any time other than between 2am and 5am on weekdays is wishing stress into your life.

A trip that can take 15 mins when driving in no traffic can take over an hour during peak hour traffic. Every other driver is just as time pressed and stressed so often drive like lunatics.

To make things unbearably bad, peak ‘hour’ seems to be stretching to cover all waking hours. If you choose to drive through this regularly you need your head checked.

If one were to design a city from the ground up with the specific goal of keeping you running on the rat wheel for as long as possible, you’d end up with something that is eerily similar to Sydney. It has just the right mix of beauty, safety, excitement and beaches to draw you in and keep you here. It then makes you contend with it’s hellish transportation options and it’s stratospheric house prices.

Here’s the kicker. I have found one of the greatest yet still (kind of) affordable places in this city to live for someone with my interests and lifestyle.

I literally have 38 km of bicycle track, rivers, mangroves, parklands, public barbecues, a 10 min walk to a train station, a ferry stop 5 mins away, outdoor gyms and more picnic spots than I can count right at my doorstep. All of this for about AUD$275 a week for a room in a 2 bedroom apartment. If this seems like a shocking amount to you, that’s probably because you don’t live in this horrible rat wheel of a city. In Sydney that is actually an OK rent.

Look at this magical pocket of liveability!

What the hell has all of this got to do with financial independence and retiring early I hear you ask?

Well I have spent a bit of time, and plan to spend a great deal more time doing my best to convince you that happiness, frugality, financial independence and retiring early are completely intertwined. I assert that you can reduce your spending and simultaneously drastically increase your happiness levels.

Using the picnic example above I could have made a far better decision.

Fun is all in the planning.

Don’t plan fun in far away places that provide no discernible advantage to the fun that can be had right where you live.

When there is fun in a far away place that does provide a new novelty or advantage, plan travel out of peak hour traffic.

Choosing to drive in Sydney during peak times is always a bad idea.

Any time you are sitting brain dead behind the wheel of your car is a lost opportunity to be productive and use your time to bring financial independence closer to you.

If you multiply this out to your typical Australian household that spends hours driving from shopping centres to cafés to friend’s places, to cinemas it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they spent 3 hours behind the wheel every weekend. Multiply this out to 52 weekends a year and you see where this is going. 156 hours per year of lost happiness and productivity. If you assume you sleep 8 hours a day, that is almost 10 days.

What could you achieve with 10 days of extra productive time? Would you have better relationships, would you produce more income, would you learn more?

So I consider this a lesson to myself on remaining vigilant and sharp when it comes to using my time wisely. Picnics bring me happiness, commuting 3 hours for that picnic does not.

When you make plans for your weekends do you unintentionally condemn yourself to a hellish commute? How much is your time worth?

Shuffling through mistakes.

Pat the Shuffler

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