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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is to go with the closer one unless there

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Speaker 1: is a really good reason to choose something that is

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Speaker 1: farther away. Minimizing travel time can make life feel a

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Speaker 1: lot more doable. So a new supermarket just opened about

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Speaker 1: five minutes from my home. This is quite exciting, as

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Speaker 1: the building had been empty for several years before the

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Speaker 1: nearest grocery stores were all ten to fifteen minutes away.

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Speaker 1: While that doesn't sound like a huge difference, if you

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Speaker 1: happen to have forgotten a key ingredient for dinner, it

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Speaker 1: kind of is. Someone can zip over to the new

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Speaker 1: place and dinner is only delayed by fifteen minutes, not

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Speaker 1: half an hour or more. Now, as a frugal person

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Speaker 1: who pays attention to this sort of thing, I can

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Speaker 1: tell you that this grocery store is not the cheapest

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Speaker 1: for everything my family eats, but proximity is worth a lot.

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Speaker 1: I want there to be a grocery store located near

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Speaker 1: me and my neighbors. So unless I know this grocery

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Speaker 1: store doesn't have something I want, I tend to do

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Speaker 1: my shopping there. In life, proximity in general is worth

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Speaker 1: a lot. If you track your time, you will see

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Speaker 1: that a lot of any given day is going to

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Speaker 1: be spent getting from one place to another, to work,

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Speaker 1: to your kids' schools, to the grocery store, to kid activities,

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Speaker 1: to your house of worship, or to another family member's home.

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Speaker 1: The difference between a grocery store that is ten minutes

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Speaker 1: away verse five minutes isn't huge. But if you go

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Speaker 1: three times a week, that is thirty minutes more spent

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Speaker 1: in transit. If your kids take dance classes and one's

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Speaker 1: studio is ten minutes away and one is twenty five

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Speaker 1: minutes away, if you go twice a week, that is

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Speaker 1: an extra hour in the car. That second dance studio

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Speaker 1: better be much much better to justify it. So, as

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Speaker 1: you are figuring out your life, ask that question, is

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Speaker 1: it worth an extra hour in the car per week

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Speaker 1: to go to this place? I would argue that for

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Speaker 1: a great many things in life, it really isn't. Most

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Speaker 1: dance studios will teach a fairly similar introduction to tap

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Speaker 1: dance class. If your child shows real promise, then you

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Speaker 1: can start looking around for a studio that offers very

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Speaker 1: specific things. But in the meantime you can use this

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Speaker 1: as a rule of thumb. Go with the closer one.

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Speaker 1: Less time spent getting to and from places means more

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Speaker 1: time you can actually do things in your life. Now,

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Speaker 1: this might not be immediately doable, but I'd argue that

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Speaker 1: you can also choose to live close to things as well.

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Speaker 1: It might be worth trading off some square footage so

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Speaker 1: your commute is twenty minutes instead of thirty five. If

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Speaker 1: you commute four days a week, that is a savings

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Speaker 1: of two hours per week or one hundred hours per year.

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Speaker 1: That is enough time to write a novel or train

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Speaker 1: for a half marathon. Living close to things might also

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Speaker 1: inspire different behavior. If you are five minutes from your gym,

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Speaker 1: you might go when you have a free hour. If

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Speaker 1: you are twenty minutes from the closest gym, you are

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Speaker 1: not going to go unless you have two hours or more,

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Speaker 1: which might be harder to come by during the week.

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Speaker 1: Because we live only eight minutes from our church, I

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Speaker 1: can run back and forth pretty easily on Sunday mornings

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Speaker 1: if we're going in shifts for various different things. If

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Speaker 1: we lived twenty minutes or maybe even fifteen minutes away

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Speaker 1: that probably wouldn't happen. A lot of stuff in life

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Speaker 1: is generally good enough. So my local gas station may

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Speaker 1: be slightly overcharging me. I am still really happy that

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Speaker 1: there is a gas station five minutes from my house,

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Speaker 1: so if I am low on gas, it is not

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Speaker 1: a huge ordeal to go fill up. When you go

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Speaker 1: with the closer one, not only do you save time,

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Speaker 1: the closer one is more likely to keep existing, and

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Speaker 1: that is a big win in many ways. Meantime, this

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Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the

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Speaker 1: most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

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Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach

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Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,

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Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.