Give Us Our Daily Bread

We're now about halfway through January, 2011. To date, this year, much of what I have been reading has been about costcutting, moneysaving, stretching the budget and trying to escape 'the rat race'. For most, it seems, it boils down to a growing dislike of current lifestyle or of a particular situation.

 

This feeling of discontent can be stirred by underlying causes such as family life, work, relationships, health, an apparent inability to control income and expenditure or just lack of free time (or energy) to perform any form of balancing act, let alone have some fun and reap the rewards.

 

One thing common to all of the above is an innate need to 'do something about it' in an attempt to change a lifestyle that can no longer be sustained. We have three choices:

 

1. Increase income to enable current lifestyle to continue or improve
2. Reduce expenditure to bring about acceptable changes then adapt the lifestyle accordingly
3. Give up and drop out of society - doesn't seem to work very well on any level

The above things can be tackled individually and exclusively, or they can be worked together into a combination that suits. It's a bit like making bread: you need the correct amount of each of the basic ingredients to get the mix right, then you knead it to get all the right reactions. Leave it to prove itself and then, if you want, you can punch it all back down and start again before finally moulding it into shape and baking it it into your daily lifestyle loaf. With a bit of forethought, that resulting loaf will cost about the same, regardless of which method you choose. Probably the most dificult part is deciding on which ingredients are most important to you.

 

A 25p homemade loaf can be enjoyed just as much as a 99p loaf. It's much the same with most things if you are happy with your lifestyle. I reckon this analogy can work just as well for business or homelife - it's the affordability and sustainability that really counts.

 

 

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