June 24, 2025 • 33 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah discuss ways to add more joy into every day, as opposed to seeking out opportunities for suffering (ice baths being one trendy example of this)! They discuss elevating daily routines, finding high points in the work day (including good breaks), and making the most of those golden evening hours.
In the Q&A, a listener writes in asking for cost-saving tips that don't feel like deprivation.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in late June of twenty twenty five.
(00:48):
This episode, Skip the Misery Please, was inspired by one
of my vander hacks. I have a substack newsletter called
vander Hack, and this particular post was called skip the Misery,
and short version of the story is I was a
bit set off by a few posts from various bros
(01:08):
on social media about their cold showers and how their
cold showers were there to toughen them up, and everyone
should have cold showers in the mornings that we develop discipline,
and I'm like, really, you know, is your life so
easy that you have to invent ways to toughen yourself up,
or like you're not even like suffering in some useful way, right,
Like you, I don't know, you're like, go become like
(01:29):
a volunteer firefighter or something, Go pull people out of
their cars in the cold rain in the middle of
the night. That could toughen you up, too, but would
have a useful purpose. But anyway, I was a bit
set off with this that there's no real reason to
suffer unnecessarily. Life is often hard enough. Often people are
just trying to get through the day, So no reason
to seek out extra suffering. We should seek out more pleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
What do you think, Sarah, Yeah, hopefully all those bros
who are looking for more ways to suffer are already
maximizing their suffering and like the getting for school routine
and the getting your toddler to bed routine, and they're
really they've run out of places to suffer and therefore
need to add extra Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I don't know, these have never like been up all
night with a sick kid and develop your suffering in
that sense, or being in a five hour car ride
with a child who keeps screaming, or you know, anything
like that. I suspect that this has not been a
regular part of their lives. But the point of the
vander Hack was to list ways that we could add
(02:32):
more pleasure into a regular, normal day. And so you know,
I mean, I don't know, suffering is just not good
enough itself. Yes, it needs to be for a useful purpose,
and there's no reason to do right, I mean, Sarah, and.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You turned it around. You're like, actually, let's focus on
the opposite of that, which is what I loved about
this post. So I'm a vander Hack subscriber and when
I read Laura's ideas and just the topic, I was like,
this needs to be an episode because it's it's true.
Why are we looking for more negativity when we can
look for more ways to get positivity and fun and
joy out of our days.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Absolutely, and no one wins in the misery Olympics. So
we're gonna go through a list of ways to add
a little bit more fun and enjoyment into everyday life.
So one of the first ways I like doing this
is to plan something to look forward to. So as
part of my weekly planning exercise, I try to say, well,
(03:29):
as I'm looking at what has happening in the next week,
is there anything that I am genuinely looking forward to.
I kind of call this a fun audit. As you
look at your schedule, is there anything you are genuinely
looking forward to? There's, of course, the things that you
are going to need to do, things you have to do,
things that you are sort of think are okay, but
(03:50):
you know, it's more like you are doing them because
they're important or meaningful things. But that said, is there
anything you are genuinely looking forward to? And if there
isn't any, it's time to plan something in You do this, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, I do this. I feel like I do it
more intensely at like the monthly and seasonal levels. If
I feel like the month is just like eh, I
think about where could I stick a day trip in there?
Or would this be a nice you know, okay, I
have an open day. Should I try to get a
massage that day? Like I want to have something on
that monthly grid that looks special and exciting, And to
a smaller extent, on the week, sometimes we can be
(04:26):
a little trickier just because if you have a very
packed week, there can be so many kind of hard
landscape items that adding more can almost take away from
the fun if there's too much, like I'm talking about
a call week or something like that. But still it's
nice to have some kind of bright spot, and it
can be so low key. Honestly, one of the lowest
key ones that I can think of are like media,
So a book that I'm excited to pick up from
(04:48):
the library, or like a TV series that's coming out
or that I've just heard about and I'm excited to watch.
Just being like, you know what, on Friday night, I'm
going to dive into that new Netflix show that I've
heard about can be just a b as you go
throughout your week, even a packed one.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, Or deciding that you're gonna call a friend, like
at some point where you have a little space, or
if you're going for like a twenty minute walk on
a lunch break, maybe you can you know, call a
friend during that and make it a double win in
terms of a mood booster. Just anything like that. But
knowing you're going to have like dinner with friends next
week can make today and every day before that feel
(05:26):
better as you're like, oh, life isn't all just this
day to day grind. Here's something I'm genuinely excited about
in my future, and I think people really need that.
Now we can also make regular daily events more exciting.
A second thing on this list was to forget the
cold showers and make your shower more like a spa. Now.
(05:48):
A couple of things you can do here, even you
know that are low key. But one thing I did
has I got nice towels that are only for me,
Like nobody else may use these towels. And if you
have lots of children, you know that they do all
sorts of things with towels, and then they wind up
like sitting on the floor of the bathroom for like
(06:09):
multiple days, and they're wadded up into a corner, and
who knows what they wiped off their face with the towel,
and you know there's somebody's like face paint on it
and I you know, chocolate, who knows. But my towels
do not have that because I'm not having face paints.
My towels are wonderful. Sarah, how about you? How have
you made your shower better? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Interesting about the towels. We also do something where we
kind of collar code our towels, and the adult towels
are white and the kid's towels. I don't even know
what color each kid is, but they're not white, and
I kind of know it'd be like side eyeing a
kid if I see them with a white towel, so
I guess we kind of do something similar. But yeah,
just making sure the products I have in there are
things that I really enjoy using. I will spend out on,
(06:53):
like a really nice body wash. I tend to buy
nice shampoo and conditioner that are sort of like go
with my Japanese straightening system. I mean, do these things
truly make a giant difference in my hair, But I
just like feel cared for, and they're usually like these
nicer Japanese nicely scented products, And I don't know. Yeah,
I think that making sure that the shower is a
(07:13):
welcoming respite is an important way to get a little
joy out of a mundane moment of your day.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah. I like this grapefruit scented facewash that I use.
I think it's just like nutrigina, but it smells nice.
It's like in the morning, it's like a nice little
pick me up as they're in a nice, warm, wonderful shower,
which with that you can consciously decide to linger for like,
an extra even sixty seconds, Like in most people's run
(07:41):
of show in the morning, sixty seconds is kind of
within the margin of error, you know, unless things are
really tight. So you could decide to just say, Okay,
I'm done showering, but I'm just gonna sit here and
relax and deep breathe in and out, enjoy this feeling,
enjoy this sensation before going around your day, and have
(08:02):
sixty seconds of pleasure there.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And it can kind of, I don't know, pay dividends
and that you will just because you're the kind of
person who got to linger even though it was like
very brief, you might feel a different way about the
entire routine. Now, we're not saying to use up ninety
thousand gallons of hot water and energy and that kind
of a thing, so within reason, but yes, probably an
extra sixty seconds would be.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth, for instance,
you know, turn off the lights when you leave the bathroom.
But if this is something that would make daily life
feel better than we you have our permission to try it.
Moving on to the morning routine, another idea that might
make daily life more pleasurable is to drink a cup
of coffee in peace. So both of us are coffee drinkers. Sarah,
(08:45):
you're sort of in a mixed you know, calf half calf.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Oh no, I already went back.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
You already would take back. Okay, it lasted.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I was very well behaved for a while, but no,
I since I now take some medicine, I felt like
I could go back to real caffee.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You're in well, so we're back real coffee now. But
there's something so nice about being able to just sit
and drink your coffee while doing something of your choice,
as opposed to like putting it down on the counter
and then racing off to deal with something else and
coming back and it's cooled down and you either drink
it lukewarm or you put it in the microwave. But then,
(09:20):
of course the microwave coffee is not exactly the height
of pleasure here. So arranging your morning so that you
can sit down and drink it now that might involve
waking up a tiny bit earlier, or if you have
some sort of morning routine, perhaps you can incorporate this
into it. In my neck of the woods, I really
(09:40):
like to drink my coffee outside and I'm somewhere where
that can be done for at least a couple months
of the year. Sarah, how about you, your morning routine
involves really sitting in enjoying your coffee too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Absolutely. I mean I've done lots of thinking about exactly
how I want to use those precious moments of solitude
in the morning, and I love part of it is
drinking my coffee, usually while I'm reading, and then I
kind of like move on to other things and kind
of end with a workout. And on the same note,
as a fancy station sorry the fancy shower gel, you
can have elevated stationary products that make your kind of mourning, planning,
(10:14):
or even just the rest of the admin you do
throughout the day more fun. I always say life is
too short for bad pens, and so I feel very
strongly about that nice session with my coffee and my
planner of choice and my best pens to start the day.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
You get a good mug too, like some bugs are
not as nice as other mugs, and I like a
good big one, like it needs to be at least
fifteen ounces, like a little bit substantial with the handle,
and that the handle's not going to burn my hand
or anything. There's all sorts of things. Make sure you've
got the good mugs if you're gonna have this experience.
(10:50):
And I was going to say, there's a Barnes and
Noble that just opened near me and it's got a
whole stationary section. So I feel like this may wind
up being more a part of my life because you know,
I don't want to really buy stuff online with that
because you can't like see it, you can't touch it,
you can't see what you're getting. But the physical store
may have a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They do have a lot their people don't actually realize,
but that section is sizable and they have some of
the nice brands.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, all right, well that'll be part of it. Well
we're going to take a quick ad break and then
we'll be back with more on how to add more
pleasure into your daily life. Well, we are back talking
(11:37):
about how to skip the misery. Please. We want you
to enjoy more of your daily life. And while we're
still on mornings, having a real breakfast is a way
to make a morning feel just a little bit more
like a treat. And I know that you know, most
people are not going to sit down to a huge
like souffle and freshly cooked bacon and nicely gueaze juice
(12:03):
on a Tuesday morning. However, there are things you can
have that are real food that don't take that long.
Many mornings. For instance, I fry myself two eggs and
have that with a piece of fruit. But it's like
a hot breakfast, and so it's not just a protein bar,
which a protein bar doesn't feel like a treat. I
(12:23):
mean maybe some people it does, but to me it
does not.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
How about you, Sarah, Yeah, I've definitely kind of come
through sixty on this. I used to be a protein
bar in the car person because I was trying to
like fit as much of a run as I could
and kind of like sacrificed eating with any time with that.
But honestly, it's I am back to like eating when
the kids eat, which is kind of nice, and we
(12:46):
don't do anything elaborate like most days it's like oatmeal
bowl or cuttage cheese bowl or something like that, but
it does feel a little bit more self care esque,
and when you feel cared for, there's some pleasure in that.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I mean, it's something you can do every day
to just start the day right, and you know this
is part of just planning ahead, like making sure you
have the groceries to have a really easy but yummy
breakfast available for you now once you start your workday,
we don't need to write off this time as just
all things we have to do either. I'm a big
(13:21):
fan of trying to organize your days and your weeks
so you can spend just a little bit extra time
on whatever your favorite work happens to be. So presumably
when you took your job, there was something you liked
about it. There was something that's like, oh, I like
this part, or you know, you're talking about your job
at parties, people say what do you do? And you
want to talk about this aspect of your job. So
(13:43):
whatever that is, you want to figure out what it
is and see if you can spend even just like
an one more hour over the course of the week
on the stuff you like best. So think about what
makes you smile when you see it on your calendar
or your to do list. What makes you say, oh,
that's going to be a good day. I enjoy recording
Best of Both Worlds episodes.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
For instance, I am always happy to write a blog post.
I enjoy doing show notes for our show in the
clinical world, like I do enjoy parts of my day,
but it's a little bit less like predictable, because truthfully,
it's like whatever's on my schedule is what I'm doing
that day for the most part. But it's nice to
take a moment and look at the patients on there
and appreciate those whom I've gotten to know over the
(14:26):
years and be like, oh, my gosh, I'm actually really
looking forward to find out where you know, this teen
patient got into college, Like how fun. I'll be able
to ask them about that, and I've known them for
six years or things like that. So even just identifying, yeah,
the bright spots in a day that's still templated out
for you, I think for those of us with some
kinds of days that are less flexible, can bring this
(14:46):
fun to your workday.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, well, there's I mean, there's always some sorts of
visits you like, probably more than others. There's probably some
aspects within your practice that are like your favorite kind
of work, and so when you see those coming up
on your schedule, you can be like, oh, yeah, I
should appreciate that. I should sort of savor that experience.
You know, even as I go about my day and
how have however many you know, patients, I have to
(15:09):
get in and out in the course of the day
to take a minute to enjoy that particular thing. And
you could honestly do this in any job. I do
believe there is something in everyone's job that they can enjoy. So,
you know, I like doing the podcast, I like writing obviously.
I love to have an open day where I'm working
on a book. That's always really exciting for me. I
(15:29):
do enjoy my speeches. I like getting up on stage
and doing that. And even if there's not a whole
lot about your job itself that you like, you probably
like some of your colleagues and so that can also
be an opportunity to coordinate, for instance, getting coffee or
getting lunch with a colleague, Like who do you really like? Now?
(15:50):
How can you arrange in the course of your week
to see that person and spend some time with them? So,
you know, just shooting a message to your colleague and
saying like, hey, I'm going to take a break mid afternoon,
do you want to grab coffee with me? Now, all
of a sudden, both of you are looking forward to
that all day, and we've put something fun into a day,
however un enjoyable. The rest of whatever tasks you are
(16:12):
doing happened to be. And you do a lot of
this too, right.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So totally, Like I will send a text in the
morning to like ask my friends about lunch so that
I can look forward to that all day. I don't
do that every day, but about lunch a week. Yeah, like,
and that it serves multiple purposes. You have the networking,
you have the connection, and it's like a little bright
spot that's not totally work, but it's definitely work adjacent.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, And most people do take some sort of breaks too,
I mean before you even get to what the breaks
might be. You know, if you are, for instance, on
your phone. There is a difference between taking a sort
of unintentional break where you're looking at Instagram versus taking
a quick break where you text a friend and say, yeah, hey,
what are you doing, what are you up to today,
(16:55):
how's life going? Or I saw you did this over
the weekend, how was it or whatever it is. But
just having that quick communication with somebody you like, friend
or family member can add a little bit more pleasure
into your day as well.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I really really think about how I'm going to use
my breaks. On my clinical days, I'm usually thinking, oh,
I'm going to write a post and like take a
little walk, and can I fit all that into like
fifty sixty minutes, And a lot of times the answer
is yes.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
And then when I'm.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Home, I usually have a book I'm looking forward to
read and like take a more relaxed lunch. So I
really do think a lot of this is like forethought,
because if you haven't considered it, you may just reach
for the most available thing or whoever pained you at
that moment. But if you already had other plans in
your mind, you will move forward with those and probably
(17:45):
be doing more of what you actually want to be doing.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah. I like to think of this as coming up
with a break portfolio for the day, And part of
this is anticipating when you will be able to take
a break. And I know this isn't obviously built in
structurally to everyone's job, but you might have a general
idea of like, Okay, as I look at my schedule,
I see I'm going to have this really intense meeting
from ten to eleven, which probably is going to leave
(18:10):
me a little bit depleted afterwards, So probably I should
build in fifteen minutes after that to do something to
boost my energy levels. And I'm going to take a
quick lunch break at one o'clock and then I can
see that, you know, I know my energy often dips
at three point thirty in the afternoon, so I'm going
to do something. Then. Now, what am I going to
do in those three like I'm anticipating taking these three
real breaks in the course of the day. What can
(18:32):
I do during those times that I will enjoy and
that will add to my energy levels. And there's all
sorts of things you can do even if you're stuck
in your office, you know, even if you are really
not able to leave very easily, you know, between chatting
with a friend, reading a book, if you are going
to be online. Even turning this into some sort of
mental vacation like looking at gorgeous photos of New Zealand
(18:56):
versus sort of shaming media posts is a very different,
very different experience, different vibe, different vibe. One other thing
you can do is make a list of recent wins,
so it could be easy to focus on all that
still has to happen, but you might boost your mood
and add a little pleasure to your day by taking
(19:18):
five minutes to remind yourself of things you have done,
probably recently, would be a little bit more generally mood boost.
But you could like say over life, like look, here's
all the amazing things I've done over over low these
many years, or even like what have I done great
last week? Like yay, I convinced Jamie not to quit
until after busy season, and I finished the Jones project
on time and under budget.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Go me.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
But that can just add a little bit of fun
to yourself. I mean, Sarah, you try to do this
with some of your reviews, right.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I mean, even on a very small scale, when
you're planning a given day, you can look back to
the day prior and be like, oh, look, I mean
it's part of the process anyway, right because you're wanting
will migrate anything that you didn't do, but take a
minute to be like, ooh, look at all that I
did get done. And on a bigger scale, if you're
looking at the season, kind of celebrating your wins from
the past season before you get to Okay, what didn't
I get to that I might add to my current
(20:06):
list is really important we have negativity biases as humans,
so if we don't kind of force ourselves to take
a moment to focus on the positive, we might miss it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, I think just generally celebrations in general, it can
be so easy to just go from one thing to
the next and not pause and say, well, we should
celebrate this, we should celebrate this. You know, somebody got
a good score on a test or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Within a family, especially, like embrace those moments your kid
finished off a season even though they might have not
necessarily wanted to continue two thirds of the way through.
That's something to celebrate. Or just finishing a school year,
or getting their braces off.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, why not? Why not? All of those are great ideas.
All Right, we're going to take one more quick ad
break and then we'll be back with more ways to
put pleasure into daily life. Well, we are back talking
(21:09):
about ways to put a little bit more pleasure into
daily life. We've gone through the morning, the workday, Well,
that leaves us with the evening. Having some sort of
intention for fun in the evening can make these hours
seem more like they exist as opposed to just drifting
from the end of work into bedtime. With whatever housework
(21:31):
and kids stuff needs to be done in there. You know,
lots of people know I like to do my puzzles,
so I try to always have one going. Or maybe
it's a good book, Sarah, what have you been doing lately?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, as you know, this is a perennial challenge for me,
I'm resisting the temptation to just say, well, it's going
to suck until your book comes out and then that
will fix everything, because listeners may not know. But Laura
has a book called Golden Hours coming out in like
what twenty twenty seven. Maybe yeah, I have to write
it first, so I probably should not wait for that. No,
I've actually been putting a lot of energy into this specifically,
(22:06):
and things have been better. I try to think of
like one thing to do, even if it's just like
I'm going to sit on the couch and read my
summer reading book while my kids watch a show like
and savor that like relative Piece, or take a block
long walk outside because you know, it's actually a nice
evening something like that. And the more I do think
about specific ways i'd like to use that time, the
(22:28):
better things are.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
When I go to the defaults, that's when it falls apart.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
That's when it all falls apart. You know, are having
some sort of enjoyable like beverage, and I'm not saying
it has to be alcohol because they know that. You know,
I've decided to stop drinking any sort of alcohol during
the week unless I'm like out to a special occasion
or something. But having something that's enjoyable to sip like
that could be some sort of mocktail. It could be
(22:53):
like perier or you know, some sort of like that
can make the evening feel little bit more festive as well.
With that making kid time more pleasant, Yeah, I mean,
we don't want to be in a situation. Even if
you're in a really challenging stage of life, like with
multiple small kids, it just feels so hard to be
(23:15):
counting the minutes until bedtime. So anything you can do
to make kid time more pleasant. If you're shuttling kids
around to activities, you might think through pain points like
can you listen to cool stuff in the car? Can
you walk or run near the soccer field? Is there
a bookstore next to your kids dance studio? Is there
something you can do? Can you call a friend while
you are sitting out in the car line outside the
(23:37):
musical theater class like what can you do to make
this time not so terrible? And if you are caring
for little ones, feel free to steer them toward activities
that you find more enjoyable in a way from ones
you like less like, for instance, if you've got some
crafts already set up, they may not realize that they
should be asking for candy Land, which you do not
(23:58):
wish to play books you enjoy, so you can hide
the monstrosities such as The Giving Tree, far far away
and never have to read that book again.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Wow, the Giving Tree, I don't think I remember that
you had strong feelings about that one. That's like my
Richard scary, like we're opposite on that Giving Tree does
not bother me, And in fact, I think I may
have cried while reading it at least a few times.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
So it's like the Tree with no boundaries. It's true,
it's true, but it's sad therapy. So that they could
set better boundaries.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Well, I already discussed my current Babysitters Club streak with
bedtime reading with Jenevieve, but it really has elevated bad time,
like I am enjoying reading to her things that I
read as a kid, So I'm going to be continuing
to delve into those various genres.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yes, and then finally, as we're ending off the day,
if you happen to be living with someone that you
are in a romantic partnership with, enjoying their company in
the course of the evening could definitely add a little
bit of pleasure into a normal, everyday sort of life.
And so we'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yes, no reason that that special time has to be,
you know, limited to a certain certain night.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
That can be Saturday night only Tuesday can work as well,
all right, So those are ways to add a little
bit more pleasure into daily life. Related to this, we
have a question from a listener on ways to save
money that don't feel too much like deprivation. So I know,
at various points in people's lives they need decide, you know,
(25:34):
we need to watch the finances a little bit more closely.
But the problem is when it just feels like no
fun whatsoever, people tend not to stick with it. So
looking for sustainable ways that might on the margins change
things a little. What did you have, Sarah, Yeah, I
think cooking versus eating out, especially if you like want
(25:55):
a certain type of food and you have kids that
are eating more to the point where like every restaurant
visit turns into like a triple digit affair.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Maybe not every, but many. I will say that, like
that is one that pays a lot of dividends and
you might actually end up with better food at home,
and it doesn't necessarily take more time either, if you've
done some of the planning of having stuff at home
that you want to make.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, and with that, I mean in general, anything bought
at the grocery store is going to be cheaper than
food bought out, and that includes like convenience stuff at
the grocery store. So if if you know, in order
to have a dinner that's not take out, you decide
to get the rotisserie chicken and bag salad, like, it's
still going to be cheaper than going to a restaurant.
But that said, I was fascinated to hear it because
(26:39):
we were having a discussion on this on our Best
of Both Worlds Patreon community. Some grocery stores are actually
significantly cheaper than others. So you found this, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, I've found that so in my area, like the
chain grocery store basically as Publics and Trader Joe's, and
I've heard Aldi as well, is probably in my experience
about thirty percent less, which is a lot. I mean,
especially again when you're feeding a larger family that's hundreds
of dollars a month. That's not you know, Latte change.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, yeah, which I had not quite been aware of that.
I mean, we sort of have our local grocery stores
that we go to, and I've looked in their reasonably
similar price, but I don't have a discount one right
by me, So that could definitely be an option for
people like looking at all these Trader Joe's, especially if
you've been shopping at somewhere that's known for not being
(27:33):
necessarily cheapest thing. A lot of people like whole foods
for various things, and if you need certain foods because
of dietary reasons, then that may be where you are.
But if that's not you, or at least it's not
like your four teenage boys who are eating like an
entire shopping cart worth of food every single day, you
(27:53):
might be able to cut that down a bit by
shopping at a slightly cheaper place. I think you also
want to make a list of kind of free mood boosters,
because sometimes we wind up spending money just out of
we're looking for something to do, like what are we
doing this weekend? And the things we come up with
off the top of our heads turn out to be
(28:16):
pricier than things that aren't. And so just think of, like, well,
what could we do well? Here are the places we
like to go walk, these are the shows we like.
We can get a hall of books from the library,
play dates in certain places with friends. I mean, these
are all like having a potluck dinner, you know, these
are all sort of ways that could turn down the
entertainment a little bit. What else, Sarah, Well.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The library in general, and I'll even actually say you
can combine those and I've heard we're in certain areas
you can actually rent passes to local attractions at the library,
So you might even be able to do things that
ordinarily would cost money for less. So just make sure
you're not sleeping on those opportunities. And a subscription audit
is always a good idea. Probably the easiest way to
(29:01):
do this is to go through your actual credit card
statements or whatever it's being built. You can also look
in your iCloud account if you have a bunch of
like Apple purchase subscriptions and just go one by one
and be like if today I was making the decision
to buy this or not, like am I using it?
Like would I want it? Because I think for some
of us it's like, oh, well I signed up for
that and I still have it, so you know, it's
(29:22):
like inertia. But those kinds of recurring things can add
up more significantly than you think.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Well, with that, I think you probably want to get
a sense. It's the same thing with time. And I
don't really like tracking spending, but if you are actively
trying to cut this down and manage it, then it
might be worth seeing because you might be surprised at
some category that is bigger than you thought it was
(29:49):
and that you don't care about, and then that might
be worth trimming. But then you might see that something
like maybe you're not spending a lot on food, and
then all this advice about trimming grocery spending is actually
not relevant to you at all, and so it's not
worth pursuing that that you should look at something else instead.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes, sorry, I should have led with that because I
am a very dedicated wine app user. And maybe I
just took that for granted that this person already knew
the ins and outs of where their cash was going.
But honestly, I do think that's probably the very first step.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, absolutely, please send us other ideas. If you have
ways that you found to trem spending in pursuit of
a financial goal without feeling deprived, we'd love to hear
about it. You can always reach out to both of us.
I mean, we can share some of those in a
later episode. All right, So, Sarah Love of the Week.
We've had a lot of Love of the weeks already
in this episode. Things that add pleasure into your daily life.
(30:40):
But what else would you add?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I would say orchids. So we were gifted in orchid
for Mother's Day and it really elevates a space. And
of all the flowers out there, they seem to last
and last and last. I feel like that is one
little simple pleasure that I get to get up and
as I'm making the coffee and worating breakfast, we have
lovely flowering orchid. Now, maybe they're a little climate specific,
they might do better here, I'm not sure, but they
(31:04):
seem to just last for like months, well.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
They're inside. I mean, you know you're inside is a
different I mean, it's probably a similar climate everywhere, you know,
most people like somewhere in the seventies and a certain
humidity range. So apparently that's what the orchid does well in.
But yeah, no, we I love fresh flowers in general,
I almost never buy them, although that would be a nice,
(31:27):
relatively inexpensive way to add a pleasure into your daily life.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Especially from Trader Joe's especially.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right, Yeah, it's like very cheap, so if you are
shopping there, that could be you know, use some of
the money you are not paying for a higher grocery
store to add a little bit of color to your
kitchen table. But right now, I mean, we have a
lot of blooming flowers in the yard, and so we've
just been cutting those and putting them in a vase.
And so I had a lovely arrangement of roses on
the counter for a while this week, and that that
(31:55):
made me happy. But that was not my official love
of the week. Mine was listening to Hooven in the car.
So if you do have to drive around a lot,
listening to things can add a little bit of pleasure
into your day. And I would say we love for
you to listen to this podcast, but there's only one
of them a week, and even if you listen to
Best Laid Plans and listen to before breakfast, that still
(32:16):
will probably not get you through all the time you
are spending in transit in the course of a week.
So adding some good music is wonderful and elevating this
time a little bit versus just whatever happened to be
coming up on whatever you're streaming or listening to in
the radio can be nice. So I've been listening to
(32:37):
all the works of Beth Hooven and it's been great.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
This morning I listened to Matt Burnisher's new album, So yeah,
it tastes very but I like music too.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Music is awesome. All right, Well, this has been best
of both worlds. We've been talking about ways to add
a little bit more pleasure into your daily life. We
will be back next week with more on making work
and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoe box dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box
on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in late June of twenty twenty five.
(00:48):
This episode, Skip the Misery Please, was inspired by one
of my vander hacks. I have a substack newsletter called
vander Hack, and this particular post was called skip the Misery,
and short version of the story is I was a
bit set off by a few posts from various bros
(01:08):
on social media about their cold showers and how their
cold showers were there to toughen them up, and everyone
should have cold showers in the mornings that we develop discipline,
and I'm like, really, you know, is your life so
easy that you have to invent ways to toughen yourself up,
or like you're not even like suffering in some useful way, right,
Like you, I don't know, you're like, go become like
(01:29):
a volunteer firefighter or something, Go pull people out of
their cars in the cold rain in the middle of
the night. That could toughen you up, too, but would
have a useful purpose. But anyway, I was a bit
set off with this that there's no real reason to
suffer unnecessarily. Life is often hard enough. Often people are
just trying to get through the day, So no reason
to seek out extra suffering. We should seek out more pleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
What do you think, Sarah, Yeah, hopefully all those bros
who are looking for more ways to suffer are already
maximizing their suffering and like the getting for school routine
and the getting your toddler to bed routine, and they're
really they've run out of places to suffer and therefore
need to add extra Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I don't know, these have never like been up all
night with a sick kid and develop your suffering in
that sense, or being in a five hour car ride
with a child who keeps screaming, or you know, anything
like that. I suspect that this has not been a
regular part of their lives. But the point of the
vander Hack was to list ways that we could add
(02:32):
more pleasure into a regular, normal day. And so you know,
I mean, I don't know, suffering is just not good
enough itself. Yes, it needs to be for a useful purpose,
and there's no reason to do right, I mean, Sarah, and.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You turned it around. You're like, actually, let's focus on
the opposite of that, which is what I loved about
this post. So I'm a vander Hack subscriber and when
I read Laura's ideas and just the topic, I was like,
this needs to be an episode because it's it's true.
Why are we looking for more negativity when we can
look for more ways to get positivity and fun and
joy out of our days.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Absolutely, and no one wins in the misery Olympics. So
we're gonna go through a list of ways to add
a little bit more fun and enjoyment into everyday life.
So one of the first ways I like doing this
is to plan something to look forward to. So as
part of my weekly planning exercise, I try to say, well,
(03:29):
as I'm looking at what has happening in the next week,
is there anything that I am genuinely looking forward to.
I kind of call this a fun audit. As you
look at your schedule, is there anything you are genuinely
looking forward to? There's, of course, the things that you
are going to need to do, things you have to do,
things that you are sort of think are okay, but
(03:50):
you know, it's more like you are doing them because
they're important or meaningful things. But that said, is there
anything you are genuinely looking forward to? And if there
isn't any, it's time to plan something in You do this, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, I do this. I feel like I do it
more intensely at like the monthly and seasonal levels. If
I feel like the month is just like eh, I
think about where could I stick a day trip in there?
Or would this be a nice you know, okay, I
have an open day. Should I try to get a
massage that day? Like I want to have something on
that monthly grid that looks special and exciting, And to
a smaller extent, on the week, sometimes we can be
(04:26):
a little trickier just because if you have a very
packed week, there can be so many kind of hard
landscape items that adding more can almost take away from
the fun if there's too much, like I'm talking about
a call week or something like that. But still it's
nice to have some kind of bright spot, and it
can be so low key. Honestly, one of the lowest
key ones that I can think of are like media,
So a book that I'm excited to pick up from
(04:48):
the library, or like a TV series that's coming out
or that I've just heard about and I'm excited to watch.
Just being like, you know what, on Friday night, I'm
going to dive into that new Netflix show that I've
heard about can be just a b as you go
throughout your week, even a packed one.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, Or deciding that you're gonna call a friend, like
at some point where you have a little space, or
if you're going for like a twenty minute walk on
a lunch break, maybe you can you know, call a
friend during that and make it a double win in
terms of a mood booster. Just anything like that. But
knowing you're going to have like dinner with friends next
week can make today and every day before that feel
(05:26):
better as you're like, oh, life isn't all just this
day to day grind. Here's something I'm genuinely excited about
in my future, and I think people really need that.
Now we can also make regular daily events more exciting.
A second thing on this list was to forget the
cold showers and make your shower more like a spa. Now.
(05:48):
A couple of things you can do here, even you
know that are low key. But one thing I did
has I got nice towels that are only for me,
Like nobody else may use these towels. And if you
have lots of children, you know that they do all
sorts of things with towels, and then they wind up
like sitting on the floor of the bathroom for like
(06:09):
multiple days, and they're wadded up into a corner, and
who knows what they wiped off their face with the towel,
and you know there's somebody's like face paint on it
and I you know, chocolate, who knows. But my towels
do not have that because I'm not having face paints.
My towels are wonderful. Sarah, how about you? How have
you made your shower better? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Interesting about the towels. We also do something where we
kind of collar code our towels, and the adult towels
are white and the kid's towels. I don't even know
what color each kid is, but they're not white, and
I kind of know it'd be like side eyeing a
kid if I see them with a white towel, so
I guess we kind of do something similar. But yeah,
just making sure the products I have in there are
things that I really enjoy using. I will spend out on,
(06:53):
like a really nice body wash. I tend to buy
nice shampoo and conditioner that are sort of like go
with my Japanese straightening system. I mean, do these things
truly make a giant difference in my hair, But I
just like feel cared for, and they're usually like these
nicer Japanese nicely scented products, And I don't know. Yeah,
I think that making sure that the shower is a
(07:13):
welcoming respite is an important way to get a little
joy out of a mundane moment of your day.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah. I like this grapefruit scented facewash that I use.
I think it's just like nutrigina, but it smells nice.
It's like in the morning, it's like a nice little
pick me up as they're in a nice, warm, wonderful shower,
which with that you can consciously decide to linger for like,
an extra even sixty seconds, Like in most people's run
(07:41):
of show in the morning, sixty seconds is kind of
within the margin of error, you know, unless things are
really tight. So you could decide to just say, Okay,
I'm done showering, but I'm just gonna sit here and
relax and deep breathe in and out, enjoy this feeling,
enjoy this sensation before going around your day, and have
(08:02):
sixty seconds of pleasure there.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And it can kind of, I don't know, pay dividends
and that you will just because you're the kind of
person who got to linger even though it was like
very brief, you might feel a different way about the
entire routine. Now, we're not saying to use up ninety
thousand gallons of hot water and energy and that kind
of a thing, so within reason, but yes, probably an
extra sixty seconds would be.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth, for instance,
you know, turn off the lights when you leave the bathroom.
But if this is something that would make daily life
feel better than we you have our permission to try it.
Moving on to the morning routine, another idea that might
make daily life more pleasurable is to drink a cup
of coffee in peace. So both of us are coffee drinkers. Sarah,
(08:45):
you're sort of in a mixed you know, calf half calf.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Oh no, I already went back.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
You already would take back. Okay, it lasted.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I was very well behaved for a while, but no,
I since I now take some medicine, I felt like
I could go back to real caffee.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You're in well, so we're back real coffee now. But
there's something so nice about being able to just sit
and drink your coffee while doing something of your choice,
as opposed to like putting it down on the counter
and then racing off to deal with something else and
coming back and it's cooled down and you either drink
it lukewarm or you put it in the microwave. But then,
(09:20):
of course the microwave coffee is not exactly the height
of pleasure here. So arranging your morning so that you
can sit down and drink it now that might involve
waking up a tiny bit earlier, or if you have
some sort of morning routine, perhaps you can incorporate this
into it. In my neck of the woods, I really
(09:40):
like to drink my coffee outside and I'm somewhere where
that can be done for at least a couple months
of the year. Sarah, how about you, your morning routine
involves really sitting in enjoying your coffee too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Absolutely. I mean I've done lots of thinking about exactly
how I want to use those precious moments of solitude
in the morning, and I love part of it is
drinking my coffee, usually while I'm reading, and then I
kind of like move on to other things and kind
of end with a workout. And on the same note,
as a fancy station sorry the fancy shower gel, you
can have elevated stationary products that make your kind of mourning, planning,
(10:14):
or even just the rest of the admin you do
throughout the day more fun. I always say life is
too short for bad pens, and so I feel very
strongly about that nice session with my coffee and my
planner of choice and my best pens to start the day.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
You get a good mug too, like some bugs are
not as nice as other mugs, and I like a
good big one, like it needs to be at least
fifteen ounces, like a little bit substantial with the handle,
and that the handle's not going to burn my hand
or anything. There's all sorts of things. Make sure you've
got the good mugs if you're gonna have this experience.
(10:50):
And I was going to say, there's a Barnes and
Noble that just opened near me and it's got a
whole stationary section. So I feel like this may wind
up being more a part of my life because you know,
I don't want to really buy stuff online with that
because you can't like see it, you can't touch it,
you can't see what you're getting. But the physical store
may have a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They do have a lot their people don't actually realize,
but that section is sizable and they have some of
the nice brands.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, all right, well that'll be part of it. Well
we're going to take a quick ad break and then
we'll be back with more on how to add more
pleasure into your daily life. Well, we are back talking
(11:37):
about how to skip the misery. Please. We want you
to enjoy more of your daily life. And while we're
still on mornings, having a real breakfast is a way
to make a morning feel just a little bit more
like a treat. And I know that you know, most
people are not going to sit down to a huge
like souffle and freshly cooked bacon and nicely gueaze juice
(12:03):
on a Tuesday morning. However, there are things you can
have that are real food that don't take that long.
Many mornings. For instance, I fry myself two eggs and
have that with a piece of fruit. But it's like
a hot breakfast, and so it's not just a protein bar,
which a protein bar doesn't feel like a treat. I
(12:23):
mean maybe some people it does, but to me it
does not.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
How about you, Sarah, Yeah, I've definitely kind of come
through sixty on this. I used to be a protein
bar in the car person because I was trying to
like fit as much of a run as I could
and kind of like sacrificed eating with any time with that.
But honestly, it's I am back to like eating when
the kids eat, which is kind of nice, and we
(12:46):
don't do anything elaborate like most days it's like oatmeal
bowl or cuttage cheese bowl or something like that, but
it does feel a little bit more self care esque,
and when you feel cared for, there's some pleasure in that.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I mean, it's something you can do every day
to just start the day right, and you know this
is part of just planning ahead, like making sure you
have the groceries to have a really easy but yummy
breakfast available for you now once you start your workday,
we don't need to write off this time as just
all things we have to do either. I'm a big
(13:21):
fan of trying to organize your days and your weeks
so you can spend just a little bit extra time
on whatever your favorite work happens to be. So presumably
when you took your job, there was something you liked
about it. There was something that's like, oh, I like
this part, or you know, you're talking about your job
at parties, people say what do you do? And you
want to talk about this aspect of your job. So
(13:43):
whatever that is, you want to figure out what it
is and see if you can spend even just like
an one more hour over the course of the week
on the stuff you like best. So think about what
makes you smile when you see it on your calendar
or your to do list. What makes you say, oh,
that's going to be a good day. I enjoy recording
Best of Both Worlds episodes.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
For instance, I am always happy to write a blog post.
I enjoy doing show notes for our show in the
clinical world, like I do enjoy parts of my day,
but it's a little bit less like predictable, because truthfully,
it's like whatever's on my schedule is what I'm doing
that day for the most part. But it's nice to
take a moment and look at the patients on there
and appreciate those whom I've gotten to know over the
(14:26):
years and be like, oh, my gosh, I'm actually really
looking forward to find out where you know, this teen
patient got into college, Like how fun. I'll be able
to ask them about that, and I've known them for
six years or things like that. So even just identifying, yeah,
the bright spots in a day that's still templated out
for you, I think for those of us with some
kinds of days that are less flexible, can bring this
(14:46):
fun to your workday.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, well, there's I mean, there's always some sorts of
visits you like, probably more than others. There's probably some
aspects within your practice that are like your favorite kind
of work, and so when you see those coming up
on your schedule, you can be like, oh, yeah, I
should appreciate that. I should sort of savor that experience.
You know, even as I go about my day and
how have however many you know, patients, I have to
(15:09):
get in and out in the course of the day
to take a minute to enjoy that particular thing. And
you could honestly do this in any job. I do
believe there is something in everyone's job that they can enjoy. So,
you know, I like doing the podcast, I like writing obviously.
I love to have an open day where I'm working
on a book. That's always really exciting for me. I
(15:29):
do enjoy my speeches. I like getting up on stage
and doing that. And even if there's not a whole
lot about your job itself that you like, you probably
like some of your colleagues and so that can also
be an opportunity to coordinate, for instance, getting coffee or
getting lunch with a colleague, Like who do you really like? Now?
(15:50):
How can you arrange in the course of your week
to see that person and spend some time with them? So,
you know, just shooting a message to your colleague and
saying like, hey, I'm going to take a break mid afternoon,
do you want to grab coffee with me? Now, all
of a sudden, both of you are looking forward to
that all day, and we've put something fun into a day,
however un enjoyable. The rest of whatever tasks you are
(16:12):
doing happened to be. And you do a lot of
this too, right.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So totally, Like I will send a text in the
morning to like ask my friends about lunch so that
I can look forward to that all day. I don't
do that every day, but about lunch a week. Yeah, like,
and that it serves multiple purposes. You have the networking,
you have the connection, and it's like a little bright
spot that's not totally work, but it's definitely work adjacent.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, And most people do take some sort of breaks too,
I mean before you even get to what the breaks
might be. You know, if you are, for instance, on
your phone. There is a difference between taking a sort
of unintentional break where you're looking at Instagram versus taking
a quick break where you text a friend and say, yeah, hey,
what are you doing, what are you up to today,
(16:55):
how's life going? Or I saw you did this over
the weekend, how was it or whatever it is. But
just having that quick communication with somebody you like, friend
or family member can add a little bit more pleasure
into your day as well.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I really really think about how I'm going to use
my breaks. On my clinical days, I'm usually thinking, oh,
I'm going to write a post and like take a
little walk, and can I fit all that into like
fifty sixty minutes, And a lot of times the answer
is yes.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
And then when I'm.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Home, I usually have a book I'm looking forward to
read and like take a more relaxed lunch. So I
really do think a lot of this is like forethought,
because if you haven't considered it, you may just reach
for the most available thing or whoever pained you at
that moment. But if you already had other plans in
your mind, you will move forward with those and probably
(17:45):
be doing more of what you actually want to be doing.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah. I like to think of this as coming up
with a break portfolio for the day, And part of
this is anticipating when you will be able to take
a break. And I know this isn't obviously built in
structurally to everyone's job, but you might have a general
idea of like, Okay, as I look at my schedule,
I see I'm going to have this really intense meeting
from ten to eleven, which probably is going to leave
(18:10):
me a little bit depleted afterwards, So probably I should
build in fifteen minutes after that to do something to
boost my energy levels. And I'm going to take a
quick lunch break at one o'clock and then I can
see that, you know, I know my energy often dips
at three point thirty in the afternoon, so I'm going
to do something. Then. Now, what am I going to
do in those three like I'm anticipating taking these three
real breaks in the course of the day. What can
(18:32):
I do during those times that I will enjoy and
that will add to my energy levels. And there's all
sorts of things you can do even if you're stuck
in your office, you know, even if you are really
not able to leave very easily, you know, between chatting
with a friend, reading a book, if you are going
to be online. Even turning this into some sort of
mental vacation like looking at gorgeous photos of New Zealand
(18:56):
versus sort of shaming media posts is a very different,
very different experience, different vibe, different vibe. One other thing
you can do is make a list of recent wins,
so it could be easy to focus on all that
still has to happen, but you might boost your mood
and add a little pleasure to your day by taking
(19:18):
five minutes to remind yourself of things you have done,
probably recently, would be a little bit more generally mood boost.
But you could like say over life, like look, here's
all the amazing things I've done over over low these
many years, or even like what have I done great
last week? Like yay, I convinced Jamie not to quit
until after busy season, and I finished the Jones project
on time and under budget.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Go me.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
But that can just add a little bit of fun
to yourself. I mean, Sarah, you try to do this
with some of your reviews, right.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I mean, even on a very small scale, when
you're planning a given day, you can look back to
the day prior and be like, oh, look, I mean
it's part of the process anyway, right because you're wanting
will migrate anything that you didn't do, but take a
minute to be like, ooh, look at all that I
did get done. And on a bigger scale, if you're
looking at the season, kind of celebrating your wins from
the past season before you get to Okay, what didn't
I get to that I might add to my current
(20:06):
list is really important we have negativity biases as humans,
so if we don't kind of force ourselves to take
a moment to focus on the positive, we might miss it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, I think just generally celebrations in general, it can
be so easy to just go from one thing to
the next and not pause and say, well, we should
celebrate this, we should celebrate this. You know, somebody got
a good score on a test or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Within a family, especially, like embrace those moments your kid
finished off a season even though they might have not
necessarily wanted to continue two thirds of the way through.
That's something to celebrate. Or just finishing a school year,
or getting their braces off.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, why not? Why not? All of those are great ideas.
All Right, we're going to take one more quick ad
break and then we'll be back with more ways to
put pleasure into daily life. Well, we are back talking
(21:09):
about ways to put a little bit more pleasure into
daily life. We've gone through the morning, the workday, Well,
that leaves us with the evening. Having some sort of
intention for fun in the evening can make these hours
seem more like they exist as opposed to just drifting
from the end of work into bedtime. With whatever housework
(21:31):
and kids stuff needs to be done in there. You know,
lots of people know I like to do my puzzles,
so I try to always have one going. Or maybe
it's a good book, Sarah, what have you been doing lately?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, as you know, this is a perennial challenge for me,
I'm resisting the temptation to just say, well, it's going
to suck until your book comes out and then that
will fix everything, because listeners may not know. But Laura
has a book called Golden Hours coming out in like
what twenty twenty seven. Maybe yeah, I have to write
it first, so I probably should not wait for that. No,
I've actually been putting a lot of energy into this specifically,
(22:06):
and things have been better. I try to think of
like one thing to do, even if it's just like
I'm going to sit on the couch and read my
summer reading book while my kids watch a show like
and savor that like relative Piece, or take a block
long walk outside because you know, it's actually a nice
evening something like that. And the more I do think
about specific ways i'd like to use that time, the
(22:28):
better things are.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
When I go to the defaults, that's when it falls apart.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
That's when it all falls apart. You know, are having
some sort of enjoyable like beverage, and I'm not saying
it has to be alcohol because they know that. You know,
I've decided to stop drinking any sort of alcohol during
the week unless I'm like out to a special occasion
or something. But having something that's enjoyable to sip like
that could be some sort of mocktail. It could be
(22:53):
like perier or you know, some sort of like that
can make the evening feel little bit more festive as well.
With that making kid time more pleasant, Yeah, I mean,
we don't want to be in a situation. Even if
you're in a really challenging stage of life, like with
multiple small kids, it just feels so hard to be
(23:15):
counting the minutes until bedtime. So anything you can do
to make kid time more pleasant. If you're shuttling kids
around to activities, you might think through pain points like
can you listen to cool stuff in the car? Can
you walk or run near the soccer field? Is there
a bookstore next to your kids dance studio? Is there
something you can do? Can you call a friend while
you are sitting out in the car line outside the
(23:37):
musical theater class like what can you do to make
this time not so terrible? And if you are caring
for little ones, feel free to steer them toward activities
that you find more enjoyable in a way from ones
you like less like, for instance, if you've got some
crafts already set up, they may not realize that they
should be asking for candy Land, which you do not
(23:58):
wish to play books you enjoy, so you can hide
the monstrosities such as The Giving Tree, far far away
and never have to read that book again.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Wow, the Giving Tree, I don't think I remember that
you had strong feelings about that one. That's like my
Richard scary, like we're opposite on that Giving Tree does
not bother me, And in fact, I think I may
have cried while reading it at least a few times.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
So it's like the Tree with no boundaries. It's true,
it's true, but it's sad therapy. So that they could
set better boundaries.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Well, I already discussed my current Babysitters Club streak with
bedtime reading with Jenevieve, but it really has elevated bad time,
like I am enjoying reading to her things that I
read as a kid, So I'm going to be continuing
to delve into those various genres.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yes, and then finally, as we're ending off the day,
if you happen to be living with someone that you
are in a romantic partnership with, enjoying their company in
the course of the evening could definitely add a little
bit of pleasure into a normal, everyday sort of life.
And so we'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yes, no reason that that special time has to be,
you know, limited to a certain certain night.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
That can be Saturday night only Tuesday can work as well,
all right, So those are ways to add a little
bit more pleasure into daily life. Related to this, we
have a question from a listener on ways to save
money that don't feel too much like deprivation. So I know,
at various points in people's lives they need decide, you know,
(25:34):
we need to watch the finances a little bit more closely.
But the problem is when it just feels like no
fun whatsoever, people tend not to stick with it. So
looking for sustainable ways that might on the margins change
things a little. What did you have, Sarah, Yeah, I
think cooking versus eating out, especially if you like want
(25:55):
a certain type of food and you have kids that
are eating more to the point where like every restaurant
visit turns into like a triple digit affair.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Maybe not every, but many. I will say that, like
that is one that pays a lot of dividends and
you might actually end up with better food at home,
and it doesn't necessarily take more time either, if you've
done some of the planning of having stuff at home
that you want to make.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, and with that, I mean in general, anything bought
at the grocery store is going to be cheaper than
food bought out, and that includes like convenience stuff at
the grocery store. So if if you know, in order
to have a dinner that's not take out, you decide
to get the rotisserie chicken and bag salad, like, it's
still going to be cheaper than going to a restaurant.
But that said, I was fascinated to hear it because
(26:39):
we were having a discussion on this on our Best
of Both Worlds Patreon community. Some grocery stores are actually
significantly cheaper than others. So you found this, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, I've found that so in my area, like the
chain grocery store basically as Publics and Trader Joe's, and
I've heard Aldi as well, is probably in my experience
about thirty percent less, which is a lot. I mean,
especially again when you're feeding a larger family that's hundreds
of dollars a month. That's not you know, Latte change.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, yeah, which I had not quite been aware of that.
I mean, we sort of have our local grocery stores
that we go to, and I've looked in their reasonably
similar price, but I don't have a discount one right
by me, So that could definitely be an option for
people like looking at all these Trader Joe's, especially if
you've been shopping at somewhere that's known for not being
(27:33):
necessarily cheapest thing. A lot of people like whole foods
for various things, and if you need certain foods because
of dietary reasons, then that may be where you are.
But if that's not you, or at least it's not
like your four teenage boys who are eating like an
entire shopping cart worth of food every single day, you
(27:53):
might be able to cut that down a bit by
shopping at a slightly cheaper place. I think you also
want to make a list of kind of free mood boosters,
because sometimes we wind up spending money just out of
we're looking for something to do, like what are we
doing this weekend? And the things we come up with
off the top of our heads turn out to be
(28:16):
pricier than things that aren't. And so just think of, like, well,
what could we do well? Here are the places we
like to go walk, these are the shows we like.
We can get a hall of books from the library,
play dates in certain places with friends. I mean, these
are all like having a potluck dinner, you know, these
are all sort of ways that could turn down the
entertainment a little bit. What else, Sarah, Well.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The library in general, and I'll even actually say you
can combine those and I've heard we're in certain areas
you can actually rent passes to local attractions at the library,
So you might even be able to do things that
ordinarily would cost money for less. So just make sure
you're not sleeping on those opportunities. And a subscription audit
is always a good idea. Probably the easiest way to
(29:01):
do this is to go through your actual credit card
statements or whatever it's being built. You can also look
in your iCloud account if you have a bunch of
like Apple purchase subscriptions and just go one by one
and be like if today I was making the decision
to buy this or not, like am I using it?
Like would I want it? Because I think for some
of us it's like, oh, well I signed up for
that and I still have it, so you know, it's
(29:22):
like inertia. But those kinds of recurring things can add
up more significantly than you think.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Well, with that, I think you probably want to get
a sense. It's the same thing with time. And I
don't really like tracking spending, but if you are actively
trying to cut this down and manage it, then it
might be worth seeing because you might be surprised at
some category that is bigger than you thought it was
(29:49):
and that you don't care about, and then that might
be worth trimming. But then you might see that something
like maybe you're not spending a lot on food, and
then all this advice about trimming grocery spending is actually
not relevant to you at all, and so it's not
worth pursuing that that you should look at something else instead.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes, sorry, I should have led with that because I
am a very dedicated wine app user. And maybe I
just took that for granted that this person already knew
the ins and outs of where their cash was going.
But honestly, I do think that's probably the very first step.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, absolutely, please send us other ideas. If you have
ways that you found to trem spending in pursuit of
a financial goal without feeling deprived, we'd love to hear
about it. You can always reach out to both of us.
I mean, we can share some of those in a
later episode. All right, So, Sarah Love of the Week.
We've had a lot of Love of the weeks already
in this episode. Things that add pleasure into your daily life.
(30:40):
But what else would you add?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I would say orchids. So we were gifted in orchid
for Mother's Day and it really elevates a space. And
of all the flowers out there, they seem to last
and last and last. I feel like that is one
little simple pleasure that I get to get up and
as I'm making the coffee and worating breakfast, we have
lovely flowering orchid. Now, maybe they're a little climate specific,
they might do better here, I'm not sure, but they
(31:04):
seem to just last for like months, well.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
They're inside. I mean, you know you're inside is a
different I mean, it's probably a similar climate everywhere, you know,
most people like somewhere in the seventies and a certain
humidity range. So apparently that's what the orchid does well in.
But yeah, no, we I love fresh flowers in general,
I almost never buy them, although that would be a nice,
(31:27):
relatively inexpensive way to add a pleasure into your daily life.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Especially from Trader Joe's especially.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right, Yeah, it's like very cheap, so if you are
shopping there, that could be you know, use some of
the money you are not paying for a higher grocery
store to add a little bit of color to your
kitchen table. But right now, I mean, we have a
lot of blooming flowers in the yard, and so we've
just been cutting those and putting them in a vase.
And so I had a lovely arrangement of roses on
the counter for a while this week, and that that
(31:55):
made me happy. But that was not my official love
of the week. Mine was listening to Hooven in the car.
So if you do have to drive around a lot,
listening to things can add a little bit of pleasure
into your day. And I would say we love for
you to listen to this podcast, but there's only one
of them a week, and even if you listen to
Best Laid Plans and listen to before breakfast, that still
(32:16):
will probably not get you through all the time you
are spending in transit in the course of a week.
So adding some good music is wonderful and elevating this
time a little bit versus just whatever happened to be
coming up on whatever you're streaming or listening to in
the radio can be nice. So I've been listening to
(32:37):
all the works of Beth Hooven and it's been great.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
This morning I listened to Matt Burnisher's new album, So yeah,
it tastes very but I like music too.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Music is awesome. All right, Well, this has been best
of both worlds. We've been talking about ways to add
a little bit more pleasure into your daily life. We
will be back next week with more on making work
and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoe box dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box
on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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