What is The Go Slow Life?
I'm so glad you asked.
The Go Slow Life, as I see it, is living a life full of intentionality, deliberate choices, focused attention, appreciation, and gratitude. There's more to it, but let's start there.
I started on my Go Slow Life journey about a year ago, in March 2018. I was recently fired from my corporate job (long story) and found that I had some time on my hands while I searched for a new job and completed an unpaid, 15-hour per week internship in order to finish my graduate degree.
During this time, I felt the financial pressure of losing one of our family incomes in a very high cost-of-living area, filing for unemployment benefits, and scrounging and scraping whatever I could in order to make ends meet (with 2 kids in daycare) until I was gainfully employed again.
During that time, I was turned on to Debt Free Living and haven't looked back since. Debt Free Living is striving to live a life without financial debts. Now, make no mistake, I still have financial debts, but since I discovered Debt Free Living, I have not taken on any new debt and plan to never again. Currently, I still have a small credit card balance, a car loan, student loans from grad school and we have a mortgage for the house. But when I lost my job in March 2018, I had almost $28,000 of credit card debt, plus the student loans, car loan and mortgage. I started to panic.
In the last 12 months, I used money I stashed away in investments (because that seemed smart at the time, but in hindsight I shouldn't have been investing in stock and mutual funds if I had credit card debt and student loans to pay), worked part time, sold belongings on eBay and Craigslist, consigned clothes and most importantly got on a very clear, deliberate budget in order to attack my debts. Those efforts are why I can say now that I've just about cleared up the credit card debt and am well on my way to clearing up the rest of the loans over the next 24 months.
Once I got on a clear path toward cleaning up the debt, I stopped panicking. I had a path in front of me and I was working toward it. My budget wasn't anybody else's determination of how I chose to spend my money, it was my personal determination as to how I spent my money. I chose how much I spent on things that were within my control. My budget reflected my values. I valued cleaning up the debt, so I allocated a big chunk on paying off debts. I valued saving for retirement, so my budget included saving for retirement. I don't value paying for a luxury gym membership (I get access to a gym for free at work and also through my part time job, and I have a spin bike and a ton of workout DVDs at home), so that was one of the first things to go. I was in control and I was at the helm.
So, being on a clear, specific, written/typed budget and sticking to it is one facet of The Go Slow Life. Nothing about my spending is out of control, and most everything is at my choosing (except for those darn District of Columbia parking tickets from Halloween...ugh.)
What are the other facets of The Go Slow Life?
- Mindfulness when eating
- Limited digital media/smartphone use during daily life
- Avoiding procrastination at all costs (this gets easier, I swear)
- Meal Planning/Shopping
- "Zero Waste" as coined by Bea Johnson -- but I have my own twist on this
- Minimalism - again, I have my own twist on this existing concept
- Eye contact
- Poise and Polish
- Genuine conversation
- Clear, direct communication
- Acceptance
- Focused work
... and more
I hope you'll join along as I expand on all of these over the coming weeks and learn how living The Go Slow Life can bring you a life full of ease.
xo
Chase
The Go Slow Life, as I see it, is living a life full of intentionality, deliberate choices, focused attention, appreciation, and gratitude. There's more to it, but let's start there.
I started on my Go Slow Life journey about a year ago, in March 2018. I was recently fired from my corporate job (long story) and found that I had some time on my hands while I searched for a new job and completed an unpaid, 15-hour per week internship in order to finish my graduate degree.
During this time, I felt the financial pressure of losing one of our family incomes in a very high cost-of-living area, filing for unemployment benefits, and scrounging and scraping whatever I could in order to make ends meet (with 2 kids in daycare) until I was gainfully employed again.
During that time, I was turned on to Debt Free Living and haven't looked back since. Debt Free Living is striving to live a life without financial debts. Now, make no mistake, I still have financial debts, but since I discovered Debt Free Living, I have not taken on any new debt and plan to never again. Currently, I still have a small credit card balance, a car loan, student loans from grad school and we have a mortgage for the house. But when I lost my job in March 2018, I had almost $28,000 of credit card debt, plus the student loans, car loan and mortgage. I started to panic.
In the last 12 months, I used money I stashed away in investments (because that seemed smart at the time, but in hindsight I shouldn't have been investing in stock and mutual funds if I had credit card debt and student loans to pay), worked part time, sold belongings on eBay and Craigslist, consigned clothes and most importantly got on a very clear, deliberate budget in order to attack my debts. Those efforts are why I can say now that I've just about cleared up the credit card debt and am well on my way to clearing up the rest of the loans over the next 24 months.
Once I got on a clear path toward cleaning up the debt, I stopped panicking. I had a path in front of me and I was working toward it. My budget wasn't anybody else's determination of how I chose to spend my money, it was my personal determination as to how I spent my money. I chose how much I spent on things that were within my control. My budget reflected my values. I valued cleaning up the debt, so I allocated a big chunk on paying off debts. I valued saving for retirement, so my budget included saving for retirement. I don't value paying for a luxury gym membership (I get access to a gym for free at work and also through my part time job, and I have a spin bike and a ton of workout DVDs at home), so that was one of the first things to go. I was in control and I was at the helm.
So, being on a clear, specific, written/typed budget and sticking to it is one facet of The Go Slow Life. Nothing about my spending is out of control, and most everything is at my choosing (except for those darn District of Columbia parking tickets from Halloween...ugh.)
What are the other facets of The Go Slow Life?
- Mindfulness when eating
- Limited digital media/smartphone use during daily life
- Avoiding procrastination at all costs (this gets easier, I swear)
- Meal Planning/Shopping
- "Zero Waste" as coined by Bea Johnson -- but I have my own twist on this
- Minimalism - again, I have my own twist on this existing concept
- Eye contact
- Poise and Polish
- Genuine conversation
- Clear, direct communication
- Acceptance
- Focused work
... and more
I hope you'll join along as I expand on all of these over the coming weeks and learn how living The Go Slow Life can bring you a life full of ease.
xo
Chase
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