A couple of years ago, I had this mindset about cost-saving living; I lived 10-15km away from my workplace. The house was lovely and very affordable. The major glitch was traffic and the roads were in a deplorable state. There was a time we asked around the workplace for accommodation and the prices we got was almost three times more than our present location.
I thought to myself, “this is stupidity, why should I do such thing?”
On the average, we spend two to three hours in traffic every single day heading to the office and back; and during the rainy season, we had to contend with flood, and our car had to literally swim through the flooded areas, all the way to our house.
Most of the times, our kids would have slept by the time we get home, and we leave home very early in the morning, so as to avoid early morning traffic. There were times we had to help the children with their school assignments over the phone.
We didn’t have enough time to bond and mentor our children, and it got so bad that my health and that of my family members began to deteriorate.
Then, I said to myself, “I need to do something about this before I die prematurely”. It was at this point I took my note and pen, and did a thorough analysis. The following were my discoveries;

1. The amount we spent on fuel for the car for that year was more than we paid for the accommodation.
2. The frequency of servicing of the car was almost monthly.
3. The nature of the road had caused me to fix the exhaust so many times, I lost count. We were advised to replace the exhaust.
4. The stress on our body was unquantifiable, and the wear and tear got so bad that my wife and I saw our health take a turn for the worse, and medication didn’t solve the problem.
5. It got so bad it was impacting negatively on my productivity at the workplace.

Living life without the right application of knowledge may cause you to suffer the consequences in life, but a good understanding will cause you to live a gainful life, as will be pointed out in the concluding part of this post.