Shift Down a Gear to Find a Sweeter Lifestyle

Your work has taken over your life, you are suffering from stress and sick of running to stay in the same place. Solution? Exchange cash for quality time.

If you feel bored, frustrated and trapped in your job, you are a likely candidate for not just a job change but a ‘downshift’. This trend from the US, where it is practised by ten per cent of the working population, has arrived in Britain.

A better word for downshifting would be ‘rebalancing’, suggests Judy Jones, co-author of Getting A Life: The Downshifter’s Guide to Happier, Simpler Living, a recent guide to a simpler life. ‘Trading part of your income for more time is about redefining yourself and your idea of success,’ she maintains.

But how do you achieve one aspect of the downshifter’s dream – financial independence? First, try living on less money. Ms Jones suggests you don’t use money to keep the treadmill turning. In her case, she found a third of her income was her ‘rat race membership fee’, spent on work-related activities like eating fast foods, taking holidays to get away from it all and having massages to relieve stress.

Downshifting doesn’t necessarily mean changing your job, but taking steps to stop your work taking over your life. It can involve flexible working, job sharing, school term-time working, or cutting down to fewer days at work. All of these things can lead to a better quality of life.

E Explain the meaning of the following phrases:

1) Trading part of your income for more time is about redefining yourself and your idea of success. 2) … you don’t use money to keep the treadmill turning. 3) … rat race membership fee.

F Discuss these questions:

1) Downshifting means getting less money for one’s work. How do you like it? 2) What are the ways of keeping up one’s financial independence? 3) How do you think it’s possible to live comfortably enough on less money? 4) What is your idea of ‘a quality life’?

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