Who Knew a $10 Bathmat Could Signify the Difference Between a Mediocre and a Marvellous Life
On spending a little to gain a lot
Welcome to Simple + Straightforward, a weekly letter about living on your own terms in a simple, meaningful way. If this is your first time here, welcome! I’m so pleased to have you in this little community.
Last night, we arrived at our Airbnb in Tbilisi, Georgia, our home for the next couple of months.
It’s a nice apartment but it has the same problem almost all Airbnbs have; it’s ill-equipped.
There are no water glasses, no bathmat to soak up the water from the open-fronted shower, and - my personal bugbear - only one pillow each on the bed.
If it sounds like I’m moaning, it’s because I am a little bit. I rather overindulged in Georgia’s famous hospitality last night, so I’m allowed to be a bit moody today, damnit.
But hey, I’m a writer. It’s my job to turn situations like these into life lessons. So here goes.
In most ill-equipped Airbnbs, the host would only need to spend something between $200 and $500 to fix the problems. In the grand scheme of investments, that’s chump change. Yet it could make the difference between 5 stars across the board and the dreaded 3.5 star rating (aka the Business Killer).
Which got me thinking: What would happen if I applied the same principle to my life? How much of an impact could a small amount of money have on the quality of it?
I’d wager a lot. Because little things make big differences.
(I’m taking the $500 example going forward here but frankly, you could swap it out with $300 or even $100 and the effect would largely remain the same.)
$500 could teach you everything you wanted to know about anything
Education is supposed to cost you a small fortune. People pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into college educations every single year.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
My husband decided last year he wanted to learn the coding language Python. He scoured online educational platforms and got learning.
So far, he’s spent $15 on course subscriptions. He could have paid for official accreditations which would set him back maybe $200 but he decided not to. He’s now at the position where his coding skills are good enough to work as a junior Python developer and he’s still got $485 left of our hypothetical $500.
The internet is the great education leveler. You can learn about anything you like, to whatever level you like, for a pittance.
And you never know where that could lead.
$500 could give you the best sleep of your life
A friend of mine has a dream to open a bed and breakfast in the Scottish highlands. She once asked me to throw at her everything I would want in a B&B. I told her I wanted what I call the holy trinity. Blackout blinds, a comfortable mattress and peace and quiet.
Come on Charlie, she chided me. I think we can think a bit bigger than that.
You’d think so, I told her. And yet in hotels and apartments, I rarely find places that nail what I would call the bare essentials. Hang the fancy breakfast or the excursions, I want a sleeping environement that renders me completely unconscious for 8 hours, thank you very much.
We don’t prioritize our sleep comfort as much as we should.
And yet $500 could fix that. It could pay for a new mattress or mattress topper, blackout curtains, a white noise machine (if you live in a noisy place), possibly with enough change to upgrade some of your bedding.
Good sleep is like magic, it can literally transform a person from a babbling mess to a productive superhuman. It’s a life non-negotiable and should be treated as such.
$500 could turn into $100,000
Apps that sell for millions of dollars have been built in bedrooms. Business empires have started in garages and spare rooms across the country.
There are millions of people around the world who started their business or side hustle for almost nothing, including me. The only money I have contributed to my writing career so far is a $5 a month Medium subscription.
OK, I’m not in the $100k earners club just yet. But that doesn’t mean you and your idea won’t be.
You don’t need to buy a new house to level up your life
You don’t need to add $100k to the mortgage to feel at home.
You don’t need to lease a $500 a month car just to get from A to B in marginally more comfort.
You don’t need to spend $1200 on the latest iPhone that does basically the same job as the one in your hand right now.
It’s never about the big fancy things. Yes they’re shiny and they’re attractive but thanks to a little thing called the hedonic treadmill, you’ll return to your baseline happiness level before you know it. Just thousands of dollars worse off.
People laugh when I tell them I travel with a rolling pin, a small set of kitchen scales, a chef’s knife and whetstone. But being a food obsessed traveler, these items have made my Airbnb life immesurably more comfortable. I am grateful for my mini cooking set every single time I step foot into a new apartment.
A little recurring dopamine hit on a $100 investment.
Because small things count for a lot.
Stuff I’ve done this week to curb my anxiety
Because Lord knows I’ve experienced a lot of it recently. And I know I’m not alone.
I talked about it. I learned long ago that anxiety does not love company.
I walked through it. There was one night last week when I was starting to spiral. So I donned a pair of shoes and pounded the streets for an hour. That change of scenery (and the exercise) sent the anxiety running.
I DID NOT Google what was worrying me. Because Googling never made anything better.
I changed my situation which for me meant moving onto another place. Istanbul is an exciting, vibrant city but it’s also overwhelming. We had wondered about staying there another week, but we cut it short and headed to chilled out Tbilisi. Sometimes it’s worth knowing when to change things up.