How Laziness Has Made Me Rich Part I - General Housework

Well, I can’t really say I’m rich (wealth is relative anyway, isn’t it?) but it makes for a catchy title that piqued your interest, right? The point I’m trying to make is that my innate laziness has helped me to achieve some financial goals because it has been a huge motivating factor that has helped me to stay the course as a Phollower of the Phrugal Philosophy. (And the bigger point I’m trying to make is: Use what you have to reach your goals. I have laziness. I’m going to use it!).

To some, laziness might be viewed as a major character flaw, but I embrace it, own it, and wallow in it. Laziness has made my life rich, and done a fair bit to fatten the ol’ pocketbook. I love watching the grass grow. I never pass up an opportunity to stop and smell the roses. I wholeheartedly admire Frugals who blissfully work their fingers to the bone to achieve their dreams, but I sadly and humbly admit that I prefer to get what I want with the least amount of physical exertion possible. Plus, I love to take naps.

I hope you enjoy this multi-part series where I ponder the connection among laziness, frugality, and quality of life. I’ll tackle a different topic each day wherein I have used my God-given gift of laziness to help me save a little green, a lot of time, and some sanity!

Today, I meander my lazy way through housework in general:

On the face of it, you would expect a frugal lazy person such as myself to have a horribly messy, cluttered home; seemingly, I would just prefer to live with my lazy messes. But though it is true that I am lazy, as a complex human being it also true that one of my little quirks is that I like to have a neat house. Also, a messy, unorganized household can be a big time- and money-waster (I’m all for wasting time, but only on something worthwhile, like being lazy). On one of my favorite TV shows Clean House, participants will often admit to going out and regularly buying clothes because they can’t find anything to wear because their house is such a mess (as Niecy would say, FOOLISHNESS!). Spending time looking for things I know I already have takes too much time and energy better spent on my favorite lazy pursuits. Thus, I have had (as a matter of spiritual survival) to find a way to reconcile these three opposing traits (that is: laziness, cheapness, and love of neatness, in case you haven’t been paying attention).

I also find that I enjoy my favorite lazy-wallowing activities (for example, laying on the couch and staring at the ceiling) much, much more in a serene, clean setting. Take it from me, cleanliness greatly enhances the entire lazy experience. So while you may not want to eat off my kitchen floors (and why on earth would you ever want to do this under any circumstances?!?) I do enough housework everyday to make sure my house is clean, neat, sufficiently swept, vacuumed, dusted and mopped to be presentable. This is my standard: if my husband’s boss shows up at our front door unannounced, I don’t want to be embarrassed by any area she might use (including the bathroom). Because of this, “private” areas might be allowed to get a little more out of hand then “public” areas, but there again, I enjoy being lazy in just about every area of my home, so I can’t let any space get too out of control or I risk putting full lazy-enjoyment in jepoardy.

So, I use my laziness to find efficient shortcuts to achieve this standard.(One of my planned blogs is a review of my housekeeping bible The I Hate to Housekeep Book by Peg Bracken. First published in 1958, it is the book “that works while you rest.” What’s not to love!). This means that I don’t clean everything everyday, (the kitchen and making the bed are really the only things that are everyday must-dos for me) but over the course of a week, say, I make sure everything is clean (to my standard, don’t forget); I find that this method keeps everything pretty tidy just about all of the time under normal circumstances.

Almost everyday this is what I do housework-wise: clean the kitchen, make the bed, then do 1-3 additional things (i.e. a load of laundry, vacuum, mop, dust, clean the bathroom, iron) to keep me well within my own personal housekeeping standard.I don’t mess around when it comes to housework, because I want to get it DONE so I can really sink my teeth into the meat of my lazy day. So I zoom around and do all this in fairly short amount of time, usually first thing after my breakfast, leaving oceans of time the rest of the day to laze about.

Lazy-savings for a rainy day: Plenty, because I don’t need to hire a cleaner (surprisingly to me, this seems to be a very common practice in my middle-of-the road middle class neighborhood). I do lazy money-saving things like make my own all-purpose cleaner, cut up old t-shirts for rags, and use small amounts of expensive cleaners like dishwashing detergent and laundry detergent. Also, I save by keeping things around here just organized enough so that I know what I have and where it is, eliminating the costs (time and money) of running to the store to replace things I already have.

(P.S. Check out today’s other post, Ideas for Frugal Living Grand Re-Opening. Have a great Frugal Day!)