Eps 007: 10 Tips for Living a First Class Life On a Budget

Today, we’re diving into how you can start introducing first class life upgrades without draining your bank account.

Keep in mind that some of these suggestions may vary depending on where you’re located, but the underlying message remains the same: it’s time to expand your thinking and embrace first-class habits while preserving your most precious resources – time and energy.”

Listen in or watch below to learn how.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why first class life upgrades are more in reach than you may have imagined
• What a coffee machine, Chat GPT and online grocery shopping have in common
• My top tips for free or affordable upgrades to your life that can start today!
• How this ties into the Perfect Day Exercise that you can learn about and do here

Join the LifePilot LIVE 30 Day Experience starting May 30

Transcript

Are you wanting to live more of a first class life in your everyday life? Then stay tuned. I have. 10 awesome ways that you can do this on a budget. I am Natalie Sisson and you’re listening to, or watching the LifePilot podcast.

Life pilot is a holistic all of life planning tool and methodology that helps you turn your dreams into reality one day at a time, if you’d like to learn more about that. And it sounds good to you. Check it out at lifepilot.co, because you don’t need to be the passenger in your life when you can be the pilot of your own life and live life on your own terms.

So let’s get back to these tips that I’ve got for you today. Obviously these are going to be a little bit dependent on where you’re based in the world as to which of these services and tools are available to you.

Ultimately, what I’m trying to do is get you to expand you’re thinking around how you can develop more first-class habits in your life. And use less of your most precious resource, which is your time and also your energy.

So these are some of the things that Josh and I have been doing with our beautiful family life. Many businesses and our gorgeous toddler to make us feel a little bit more like we’re winning at life, even if we’re on a budget.

First Class Life Tip #1. Get your groceries delivered to you.

Now I appreciate if you’re in a town or a city that doesn’t offer this. Then boo, but if you are, it is the most miraculous thing. A true first class life upgrade in my opinion!

It is such a time saver in terms of you driving into town, even though we have an electric car, we still have to get there, pack up, do the actual shopping, think about what we need to get. We’re often impulse buying because there’s a special on.  So we ended up spending more than we really needed. Then we have to pack it all in the car, drive it home and unpack it.

Picture this instead. You order online and not very long because you’ve already saved your shopping list. You’re not doing any impulse buying. You’re buying healthier things that you need, and maybe you’ve done some meal prep and planning once and then forever more. You now have your ideal shopping list saved there online.

And then you just hit. Deliver it to me, it saves you time. It saves you money, ultimately, and it turns up at your house in lovely paper bags with a friendly person. And all you do is unpack it at your end and feel like a total rockstar. So that’d be number one.

First Class Life Tip #2. Get a cleaner.

I know that this is an investment in money,  but it is also an investment in your relationship, and your stress and your anxiety just melting away.

For Josh and I, it has been a game changer because we have two very large fluffy dogs. We have a toddler. And we have businesses to run, as I mentioned, and frankly, getting in there and cleaning the bathroom or the toilet just, isn’t a good use of our time if we really value our time and what we could be doing instead.

It just makes sense to get a cleaner who brings their own eco-friendly products that they can clean as their mops, everything they come they’re done in two hours. It is the best investment.  And also from a relationship point of view, we used to have tensions or fights about, Hey, I did it this week.

You didn’t do it, or you didn’t do it the way it should have been done, or the house is still messy and we just don’t have any of that anymore. And it’s way easier to just keep on top of any small bits of cleaning throughout the week as a result, best investment ever.

First Class Life Tip #3. Get an in-house masseuse.

The third is a bit more of a personal one.   Which is, if you love massages, then look for an in-house masseuse.  For the last six years, Josh and I have been investing in our health by way of getting a massage every couple of weeks. So it’s a bit of a fortnightly treat for us.

Recently we got introduced to a masseuse who comes to your house for the same price as we were paying to go all the way into town, to park the car, to have the massage come out and to come back home.

So she comes to our house, she sets up her massage table, her essential oils. We put the heater on, we have the lights down and she does each of us in a row. All we need to do is leave the office or leave the kitchen and we’re right there. Just getting this amazing message for a whole hour.

And then we can go nap if we want or whatever we want to do. So that has been a game changer and you’d be surprised how much more affordable it is than you actually think. And it is an investment in your health.

So if that’s available to you, do it. On the same terms. What about having your hair done at home or somebody to come in and do a facial?

There are a lot of people that offer in-home services, that just make you feel like you are living a first-class lifestyle and often it’s not much more than going for the treatment somewhere else.

If you can only afford it once a month. Great. Go for it. It is one of the best investments in you and your wellbeing and your sense of just feeling like you deserve it and you do.

First Class Life Tip #4. Get a meal delivery service.

So a little bit like your groceries, consider this a first class lifestyle upgrade. If you hate cooking dinner, if you hate planning or prepping for dinner every single week night, then consider this as again, another investment. It will probably save you money on groceries.

It’s for sure going to save you time, money and energy planning out every single meal. You can choose how many nights you want the meals delivered? Is it 2, 3, 4, 5, or every single day of the week?  You can choose whether you’re vegetarian or pescatarian or whatever you wish for.

It comes with amazing recipes, all the ingredients right there. So there’s no wastage. An exact recipe of how to do it. And then you just get to turn up in the kitchen, prep it with your partner or your friends and cook away. And you actually start to feel like you’re a pretty good cook.

And even if you only have the service for two or three months, it will actually inspire you to consider other recipes in the kitchen.

So we have used it for the last four or five years intermittently. Typically for three or four months, and then we’re like, cool. I think we’ve got enough recipes up our belt that we can alternate cooking each night and feel a bit more inspired. And we’ve got some really good ideas about how to use fresh in season produce.

So it it is just a really great service, especially if you have a full on family or not much time to plan and cook for yourself, it does work out more cost effective than going to restaurants. And again, you’re saving on time and money and energy.

Here in New Zealand, we have heaps. We have Hello Fresh My Food Bag and probably about four or five other services like WOOP, that you can choose your price line and you can choose what works for you. Highly recommended, and it gets delivered to a house once a week in a box.

Once again, all you meal prep. Done. You can forget about it. Just turn up and cook, which is usually the best part, right? First class life upgrade right there!

First Class Life Tip #5 Use a service to have help in your home

So obviously this might not work out for you, but there are a lot of people out there, who come from overseas who are willing to work in return for food and board. So we use a service called wwoof.nz – it is an international service stands for willing workers on organic farms.

Now we don’t technically have an organic farm, but we don’t have a non-organic farm. And we have 10 acres of land here to look after. And frankly, Josh and I can not keep on top of all the trees that need planting or pruning.

The weeding the garden the water blasting you name it. We need help with it. And as much as I like gardening, I now get to just go out and do the things that really make me feel joy.

We get our WWOOFERS to help with all the other jobs. It doesn’t just need to be outside. They can also help out inside with cleaning, with organizing with a deep clean with childcare. So it has been fantastic for us. We’ve had people from around the world, speaking all sorts of different languages.

And it’s been amazing because Leo seems to really go well with them. And it helps us out big time. Sometimes if they’re doing something inside and they can take care of him for a little, it allows Josh and I to then maybe go out and plant trees or cut trees or whatever it may be. So it is definitely a good idea.

If you have a property, even if you don’t have one, it has a lot of land. There are other services where you can literally get people who need a combination and food, in return for doing work. And so for us as woofers, they do around six hours a day. Six days a week.

And, some of that can include them cooking as well. So you can sort it out between you and it is absolutely amazing. We provide them with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and usually they’re so easy going.

They just make their own stuff and they really enjoy staying here and it’s quite cool having people in your space for a week or two and getting just a ton of stuff done. Around the house and outside highly recommended and there are other services like it. So just Google it for your country.

First Class Life Tip #6 Use chat GPT as your personal assistant.

So if you are wanting to book flight somewhere, if you’re wanting to research meal plans and meal prep or exercise plans, any of these things that I would call life admin. Like who’s a potential dogsitter are, that I could have or housesitter or whatever it may be.

How do I go about renovating my house? What’s a project. Plan timeline for a house Reno for a lounge or a bathroom. Chat GPT can be your best friend and do all of this for you in seconds.

So it has taken away so much of that Headspace that you’ve had to do before, in terms of doing all your own research, it can help you with learning. It can create a learning curriculum for you. If you want to learn Italian, it just puts all the access to services, products, applications, people that you need in your whole life to make your life a flow and feel easier.

And it does it for you in seconds based on the prompts and the input that you put in there. So start to think about things that you’re doing all the time that honestly Chat GPT can do for you like a personal assistant that you don’t even have to pay because it’s free.

First Class Life Tip #7. Get a coffee machine (or appliance you love).

If you are a coffee lover.  So during a lockdown, a couple of years ago, we decided to buy ourselves a secondhand, but very fancy coffee machine. Because we realized in the previous lockdown, one thing we miss most was getting our lattes or flat whites from a cafe. I know what a privilege.

And now we get to make those very same coffees for a fraction of the cost in our own house. And have them whenever we want. And we feel like we are in a cafe in our own home. It’s a real treat, actually.

As I said, we save a lot of money on coffees that we were spending in cafes. And now it just, it just feels like first class living in our own house.

If you’re not a fan of coffee, you might want to invest in something that brings you joy and makes you feel like you’re really doing something good for yourself and your health and your wellbeing.

First Class Life Tip #8. Get your own personal trainer for free.

What do I mean by this?  Well, probably for the last five or six years, I have worked out from home. With just a couple of weights and a yoga mat. Very very little equipment. And I have my personal trainers for free on YouTube.

Their channels are free. They’re usually dropping exercises every single week, sometimes twice a week.  And I get to choose between Yoga with Adrienne who’s amazing. I get to choose hit and strength workouts with Juice and Toya, or with Growing Annanas as well as Pilates and dance and whatever I wish for.

It is awesome. So I will choose a 20 or 30 minute workout. I’ll do it right in my lounge or an hour workshop depending on the time of the year and how cold it is.

And it’s just like having a personal trainer, take me through with music and warmups and everything. And then I simply just pick the next workout for the next day so I can get up early in the morning and do it before anybody else is awake.

Or I can do it in the middle of the day or wherever, and I don’t need much space at all. I just need a mat, maybe some equipment and off I go. And honestly it feels like first class living because they guide me through it.

I don’t have to find my own motivation. I don’t have to plan the workout and I’m getting stronger and fitter and healthier every day.

First Class Life Tip #9 Hire dog walkers

This first class life upgrade will only apply to you if you have pets in particular dogs.  But if you honestly don’t have a lot of time to walk your dogs, to groom them, to do all the extras for your dogs. Like let’s face it. It takes a lot of responsibility to have a dog let alone a child.

Why not hire a dog walker for a couple of times a week, take that stress off yourself.  If you find it stressful, or if you frankly, aren’t able to, because you’re working late or your got early starts, just think about ways in which you can get services that are actually pretty affordable to help you relieve the stress from your life and have one less thing to think about.

I love walking our dogs, but we have a forest right behind us. And I can go at any time and just go for a walk and get into the fresh air and into nature. But I imagine that for some people you’ve got kids, you’ve got jobs, you’ve got businesses, you’ve got sports, you’ve got so many things going on.

And sometimes these beautiful furry, friends who give us so much joy in life. are actually more of a responsibility than a pleasure, just being honest. So why not give yourself the gift of having somebody else exercise them or take them to doggie daycare?

Yes, it’s an investment, but it’s also, again, just use of your time and energy. It’s just a thought. If you are getting stressed out by all the responsibilities and things you have to do in any given day.

And they get the joy of going out. Somebody else and having fun.

First Class Life Tip #10. Hire a nanny or babysitter

So again, this only applies if you have kids. I see so many parents struggling to do it all themselves.  So, yes, their kid might be in daycare or kindergarten or school, but outside of that, they might want to go on a date night or they might just want a few hours in the weekend to just be by themselves or have some time for themselves. or work on other projects.

D yourself the favour of investigating and researching local babysitters or nannies? You don’t have to have them full time. They do not cost the earth. You can often find somebody in your community.

Depending on where you live or your town who was more than willing to look after your kids, you can learn to trust them.  They’re often friends of friends or friends of your family, and it just makes a huge difference.

So don’t try and do everything yourself when you can get some well needed help to just make you feel like you’ve got your stuff together a little bit more, and you have some precious free time to just be yourself and do the things that you love because ultimately it will make you a better parent overall, too.

So those are my 10 tips for having a first-class lifestyle on a budget. And introducing more of these things into every day or week, so that you feel like the king or queen you truly are.. I would so love to know if any of this resonated. And I would also love to know if you have any tips for me on other things that you do for yourself.