Practically Peaceful | #7
Living off the smell of an oily rag, happy little vegemites and a proud moment
After a bit of a hiatus, a business partnership that didn’t quite work out and plenty of reflection, I’m heading back to building a local business marketing agency. I plan to start small as I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands - though with the flexibility of hours that it offers and being all online, I’m able to squeeze work in around family responsibilities and build it slowly. I have a fresh outlook on this and I’m excited!
Speaking of a fresh outlook and starting small, I will be making a couple of changes to Practically Peaceful. I didn’t realise the amount of effort it took to put out a weekly publication in this format, particularly for an amateur writer like me. I’m really enjoying doing it and enjoying the feedback from it, so I’ll be keeping it up but it’ll be more of a documenting of progress on projects and maybe a core idea/take away for the week moving forward. This will allow the time required to dedicate to getting the agency up and going.
Practical
Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash
There is a term that I think is recently invented called ‘house hacking’. The basic concept is you get creative with making an income from a property you own, rather than just living in it yourself or using the whole property just for yourself. For example, you have a granny flat at the back of your main house and you decrease your ‘comfort’ by moving in there, and you rent the house to someone else to increase the amount you’re receiving. Or you could even move to someone else’s granny flat or somewhere cheaper. ‘Rentvesting’ is another term that I’ve used for the same thing. Google or YouTube any of these terms and you’ll see plenty of examples.
We’re currently living in accommodation provided by my wife's employer as it was included in her employment contract. This is the third time we’ve stayed in staff accommodation as a part of her employment. I completely understand that most jobs don't offer this, and usually it comes with plenty of trade-offs i.e. not as ‘nice’ as your own home, you don’t have the benefit of your familiar neighbourhood or you’re away from family.
What it has done though, is open up a bit more time freedom. Accommodation/housing is our biggest expense - the cost of living in staff accommodation is very little. It creates the ability for us to do something creative with our primary place of residence (PPOR). That’s because we own it of course. If we didn't own it, we’d be able to do whatever else with excess income. (This is not financial advice obviously, just sharing our first-hand experience with this approach).
The way we’ve chosen to ‘get creative’ is short-term rentals. We’re being mindful of the current rental ‘crisis’ but we are also mindful that rental rates in the area would not cover current loan repayments in this time of inflated interest rates. We’re encouraging long-term stays for our listings and have commonly had people stay for a month or longer who are there for work, study or between houses.
Getting a bit away from house hacking specifically but as I love this stiff I thought also mention the rising trend of other ways people are getting creative with reduced-cost-living are by exploring van life, tiny home living, living in boats, converted trucks and an endless amount of other alternatives. A great YouTube channel that is focused on this is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8EQAfueDGNeqb1ALm0LjHA.
Peaceful
I’m re-reading the Little Book of Hygge - Danish Secrets to Living Well, by Meik Viking. I think I stole this from my sister, Lani?
I never get tired of reading books about scandi lifestyle.
There is a section in the intro (which you can find for free here - The Little Book of Hygge - Intro) that talks about a few possible reasons particularly for Danish happiness, though one sentence that struck a chord was “Danes are the happiest people in Europe according to the European Social Survey, but they are the ones who meet most often with their friends and family and feel the calmest and most peaceful.”
A bit of the old chicken/egg thing going on in this sentence, though my guess is seeing friends and family a lot is a reason for happiness, not just a byproduct of being happy.
Face of the week
A proud Dad moment this week as our two and half year old little man dropped a bit of the banana & blueberry smoothie we made on his scooter and then unprompted said “look at this face!”.
Dad Joke of the the week
What's the advantage of living in Switzerland?
Well, the flag is a big plus.
Catch ya next week ✌️