Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to go with the closer one unless
Speaker 1: there is a really good reason to choose something that
Speaker 1: is farther away. Minimizing travel time can make life feel
Speaker 1: a lot more doable. So a new supermarket just opened
Speaker 1: about five minutes from my home. This is quite exciting,
Speaker 1: as the building had been empty for several years before
Speaker 1: the nearest grocery stores were all ten to fifteen minutes away.
Speaker 1: While that doesn't sound like a huge difference, if you
Speaker 1: happen to have forgotten a key ingredient for dinner, it
Speaker 1: kind of is. Someone can zip over to the new
Speaker 1: place and dinner is only delayed by fifteen minutes, not
Speaker 1: half an hour or more. Now, as a frugal person
Speaker 1: who pays attention to this sort of thing, I can
Speaker 1: tell you that this grocery store is not the cheapest
Speaker 1: for everything my family eats, but proximity is worth a lot.
Speaker 1: I want there to be a grocery store located near
Speaker 1: me and my neighbors. So unless I know this grocery
Speaker 1: store doesn't have something I want, I tend to do
Speaker 1: my shopping there. In life, proximity in general is.
Speaker 2: Worth a lot. If you track your time, you will
Speaker 2: see that a lot of any given day is going
Speaker 2: to be spent getting from one place to another, to work,
Speaker 2: to your kids' schools, to the grocery store, to kid activities,
Speaker 2: to your house of worship, or to another family member's home.
Speaker 2: The difference between a grocery store that is ten minutes
Speaker 2: away verse five minutes isn't huge. But if you go
Speaker 2: three times a week, that is thirty minutes more spent
Speaker 2: in transit. If your kids take dance classes and one's
Speaker 2: studio is ten minutes away and one is twenty five
Speaker 2: minutes away, if you go twice a week, that is
Speaker 2: an extra hour in the car. That second dance studio
Speaker 2: better be much much better to justify it. So, as
Speaker 2: you are figuring out your life, ask that question, is
Speaker 2: it worth an extra hour in the car per week
Speaker 2: to go to this place? I would argue that for
Speaker 2: a great many things in life, it really isn't. Most
Speaker 2: dance studios will teach a fairly similar introduction to tap
Speaker 2: dance class. If your child shows real promise, then you
Speaker 2: can start looking around for a studio that offers very
Speaker 2: specific things. But in the meantime you can use this
Speaker 2: as a rule of thumb. Go with the closer one.
Speaker 1: Less time spent getting to and from places means more
Speaker 1: time you can actually do things in your life. Now,
Speaker 1: this might not be immediately doable, but I'd argue that
Speaker 1: you can also choose to live close to things as well.
Speaker 1: It might be worth trading off some square footage so
Speaker 1: your commute is twenty minutes instead of thirty five. If
Speaker 1: you commute four days a week, that is a savings
Speaker 1: of two hours per week or one hundred hours per year.
Speaker 1: That is enough time to write a novel or train
Speaker 1: for a half marathon. Living close to things might also
Speaker 1: inspire different behavior. If you are five minutes from your gym,
Speaker 1: you might go when you have a free hour.
Speaker 2: If you are twenty.
Speaker 1: Minutes from the closest gym, you are not going to
Speaker 1: go unless you have two hours or more, which might
Speaker 1: be harder to come by during the week. Because we
Speaker 1: live only eight minutes from our church, I can run
Speaker 1: back and forth pretty easily on Sunday mornings if we're
Speaker 1: going in shifts for various different things. If we lived
Speaker 1: twenty minutes or maybe even fifteen minutes away that probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen. A lot of stuff in life is generally
Speaker 1: good enough. So my local gas station may be slightly
Speaker 1: overcharging me. I am still really happy that there is
Speaker 1: a gas station five minutes from my house, so if
Speaker 1: I am low on gas, it is not a huge
Speaker 1: ordeal to go fill up. When you go with the
Speaker 1: closer one, not only do you save time, the closer
Speaker 1: one is more likely to keep existing, and that is
Speaker 1: a big win in many ways. Meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.