They buy secondhand items, repair appliances themselves, rely on neighborhood groups for children’s clothes and enjoy free music festivals and outdoor activities for entertainment. Lemay has fixed his washer-dryer three times, repaired the vacuum cleaner twice and the kitchen stove once.
“It’s all about finding the right balance in life, stopping the insane race and actually enjoying quality moments with family,” he said.
The trend of living frugally in order to downshift at work is particularly common among younger generations, who have struggled to build wealth anyway amid high housing prices and inflation that’s outpacing wage gains. About 61% of 15- to 25-year-olds said they value harmony between work and home life, compared to 42% who said they value earning a lot of money, according to recent research from education nonprofit Murmuration and the Walton Family Foundation.
It’s a global phenomenon. In the US, the r/antiwork subreddit has more than 2 million members and is described as a community for those who want to “get the most out of a work-free life.” More recently, the idea of “quiet quitting” — doing the bare minimum at work — has taken hold as people reject hustle culture and seek more personal time.
In China, the “lie-flat” movement is a rebellion against the 9-9-6 work culture — a reference to working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — and instead doing as little as possible to get by.
And in France, a group of extreme savers got national attention for promoting the concept of “working less to live better.” The group — called “Détravail” (De-work) — meets every other month in a small rental space in Nantes to share tips on how to reduce expenses and whittle down work hours.
Going Green
Many young people around the globe have become interested in cutting their expenses and shifting to a low-work schedule to reduce their carbon footprint amid growing environmental awareness, said Geneviève Provencher, founder of Canada-based human resources company Flow.
Nikita Crocker, 32, cut her lifestyle to the max last year so she wouldn’t need to work at all. A former nanny who initially studied to be an engineer in London, Crocker decided to eliminate her reliance on corporate work so that she could dedicate her time to climate-related volunteering.
Living in her husband’s grandfather’s house and surviving on her husband’s primary-school teacher salary of £50,000 ($58,000) a year, the couple spends £1,200 on rent and as little as £500 monthly on food and some other expenses for them and their two small children.
“After school I became disillusioned in the capitalist system,” Crocker said. “I realized that any corporate job would do more harm than good.”
--With assistance from Ainsley Thomson.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.