Go with the closer one

In life, proximity is worth a lot

A little over a year ago, a new supermarket opened 5 minutes from my house. Before this, the nearest grocery stores were all at least 10 minutes away. While that doesn’t sound like a huge difference, if you have forgotten an ingredient for dinner, it kind of it. Someone can zip over there and dinner is only delayed by 15 minutes, not half an hour or more.

Now, as a frugal person who pays attention to this sort of thing, I can tell you that this grocery store is not the cheapest for everything my family eats. But proximity is worth a lot. I want there to be a grocery store located near me. So unless I know this grocery store doesn’t have something I want, I tend to do my shopping there.

In life, proximity is worth a lot. If you track your time, you will likely see that a reasonable chunk of the day is spent getting from one place to another. To work. To your kids’ schools. To the grocery store. To kid activities. To your house of worship or a family member’s home.

The minutes add up

The difference between a grocery store that is 10 minutes away vs. 5 minutes isn’t huge, but if you go three times a week, that’s 30 minutes more in transit. If your kids take dance classes, and one studio is 10 minutes away and one is 25 minutes away, if you go twice a week that’s an extra hour in the car. That second dance studio better be much, much better than the first to justify it.

So, as you’re figuring out your life, ask that question. Is it worth an extra hour in the car per week to go to this place? I’d argue that for a great many things in life, it really isn’t. Most dance studios will teach a fairly similar introduction to tap dance class. If your child shows real promise, then you can start looking around for a studio that offers very specific things. But in the meantime, you can use this as a rule of thumb: Go with the closer one. Less time spent getting to and from places means more time you can actually do things in your life.

Make it easy

Now, this might not be immediately doable, but I’d argue that you can also choose to live close to things as well. It might be worth trading off some square footage so your commute is 20 minutes instead of 35. If you commute 4 days a week, that’s a savings of two hours per week, or 100 hours per year. That’s enough time to write a novel. Living close to things might also inspire different behavior. If you’re 5 minutes from your gym, you might go when you have a free hour. If you’re 20 minutes from the closest gym, you’re not going to go unless you have 2 hours or more — which might be harder to come by during the week.

A lot of stuff in life is good enough. So while I know that my local gas station is slightly over-charging me (at least compared to the next closest station), I’m really happy there is a gas station 5 minutes from my house. If I’m low on gas it’s not a huge ordeal to go fill up. I’m a fan of anything that keeps life simple.