Living A Friction-less Life
Let’s toast to more time spent on you, not other tasks.
Living life doesn’t mean you have to be an adult every time and do adult stuff each chance you can. With that said, I have one question for you:
If you can save 10 minutes of your time to pay your internet subscription a month, would you do it?
I know I would, and I do hope you would too. Otherwise, this post is not something you can benefit from.
I’m turning to listening to more and more podcasts day by day, and I’ve noticed that it’s been helping me become more productive. Like, instead of sitting on traffic and getting bored, I’d play an episode from a podcast that I listen to, and munch in little informational nuggets I could gets from that podcast.
I feel that by doing so, I become entertained, and at the same time, I’m learning more about the latest trends of topics I’m currently interested in listening to.
Listening to podcasts is just one of those things that you could do to live a friction-less life. Imagine listening to a 10 page blog post vice reading it. Wouldn’t that save you more time? Exactly.
Delegating And Letting Go Ain’t Easy
I know this for a fact. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of automation and I like to not do as much stuff as possible that does not hugely concern me, but in order for you to have more time for yourself and live a friction-less life, you’ll have to delegate small tasks that you’re so used to doing, and start implementing automation so you can save time.
To give you more ideas on how you can live a friction-less life, read further.
A-Z Life Hacks Towards A Friction-Less Life
Bills
As you know, paying bills is more accessible than a decade or two ago, but you can always not worry about paying your bills, nor any late fees you may incur if you forget to pay your bills on time.
Taking advantage of your bank’s free bill pay service is a great way to reduce the stress you could have when it comes to paying bills. When you get used to this, you won’t have to worry about your bills, and you’re actually helping yourself get better credit score because you’re always on time on paying incurred expenses.
Budget & Tracking
If you have debts you need to pay off and you maybe you don’t realize you need help figuring out where your money should be, you can use free tools like Mint. Basically the idea is you connect all your bank accounts, debit cards and credit cards, and it will pull all your assets and debts, it will also let you set up a savings goal and give you valuable recommendations when it comes to consolidating debt and so on.
Groceries
Sure, having a list will help you focus on the things you actually need to buy from the grocery store, but then, there’s always the hassle of traveling to and from the grocery store, finding a parking and loading and unloading the items you shopped.
With that said, I use services like Instacart and Amazon Prime Now to help me save time with groceries. You can literally get done with your list within two minutes.
Guess what? They deliver your groceries for free. But you’re probably wondering, well why two different services? Here’s why:
Amazon Prime Now: It’s geared toward grocery stores that does not have membership.
Instacart: I like the fact that I can just pay a yearly fee, which basically saves me time, and money on different grocery club memberships, plus free 2-hour grocery deliveries. Say, I have a Costco membership, and a Sam’s Club membership, I wouldn’t actually have to pay both clubs anymore annually because my Instacart membership covers that.
Insurance
Life is priceless, but everything gets costly if you don’t take advantage of insurance plans that can cover you for anything and everything under the sun.
Are you still paying month-to-month for your insurance? It could be any insurance, it could be life insurance, health insurance, home insurance, jewelry insurance, anything, really.
Here’s a pro-tip: Committing to a 6-term or annual-term payment with your insurance can save you a lot of money in the long run, plus, you won’t have to worry about not paying off your insurance costs because you’re already paying for it upfront.
Also, just like bill pay, this can also be something that you could schedule to be taken out automatically out of your bank account so you won’t have to worry about your due date.
Movies
One of the things I love is buying my movie tickets upfront so I can skip the line and literally just go in the theater assigned for whatever movie I watch.
From where I’m from, I’m literally 2 miles away from 2 different AMC theaters, so I guess you could say that I didn’t really have a choice but to be an AMC Theaters fan. Wrong, I actually like the fact that you could buy tickets upfront, and just pick up food and drinks you ordered online upfront.
It reduces the time you waste waiting for both the ticket line and the food line, especially if you’re running late.
Savings
Most of friends love the idea of saving money, but daunt the idea of actually doing it. In order for you to live a friction-less life, especially as you get closer to retirement, you’re going to want to start saving money.
They say the best time to start savings were 20 years ago, but the second best time to start is now. The longer you wait, the more interests you’re missing on.
Seeing money literally go away from your account can cause you to stop sending money on your savings account, so I highly recommend that you set up allotments directly from your direct deposit setup for a portion of your money to go to your savings account.
Also, another thing that you could do is find a high interest savings account, that way you get more for your money.
Below are the links for each type of savings / CDs / investment accounts that you can easily setup today.
High Interest Savings: American Express Personal Savings Bank
High Interest CDs: I use Navy Federal, but feel free to use another one
Investing: Start investing for just $10/week with iBillionaire
Taxes
Most people, including myself, don’t worry about taxes until I actually have to. But then if you notice, every tax season, you’re trying to remember any expenses you’ve had or any investment during tax season. I realized that there had to be a better way to handle personal taxes for myself, that way I won’t have to worry about keeping track of any tax exemptions I may have.
There are softwares out there that helps you keep track of your savings and expenses that helps you with filing your taxes.
Did you think it’s hard? Think again.
Any successful people out there will tell you that life don’t come as easy as you think, unless of course you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
The work is only in the beginning. To make automation less daunting for you, make a list of your usernames and passwords for all your bank accounts, your debts, and money that’s coming in to your bank accounts.
Once you have a list, figure out a realistic budget that you can live with day-by-day, and start automating little tasks that could help you save more time, money and energy along the way.
Remember, it’s only hard in the beginning. But once everything is automated, there will less stress coming your way.
What’s your thoughts?
Did you learn anything from this post? Comment or share it with a friend.
