Before stumbling on the antiwork movement I was saving to buy a house. I still bought into the whole American dream thing. Managed to put some money away by cutting bills down to the bare bones, and kept at it for several years. Then I looked into what the requirements to getting a home loan were and realized I wouldn't be able to cover the debt to income ratio without a substantial raise. I looked into other companies in the industry, and while there was more money to be had, it came at the expense of the safety of the environment that the work was done in. So I continued to get more and more disillusioned at work, and decided I didn't want to keep doing it anymore.
So I quit.
I got really lucky with a tiny studio apartment with great landlords who aren't just greedy sleazebags. Because I was saving for a house I already had really good habits about how I spent my money, so monthly bills are very low. That down payment I was building was going to last a while.
For the past year, I've been about the worst thing for the economy to the powers that be. I haven't been buying anything besides the bare necessities to survive. No new clothes, no eating out, no alcohol, no coffee shops, no impulse trips to the gas station. When grocery prices got out of control, I just cut all junk food off the list, even those little “luxury” indulgences you allow yourself every once in a while. One streaming service maximum, patronize the library. Got a 16 year old car that I do my own maintenance on, but drove it so little over the past year that I only had to fill it twice.
Just a real piece of shit.
Am I happier? Not really. But the existential dread of being a part of a generation with an incredibly uncertain future has more to do what that than anything else.
Am I less stressed? Undoubtedly, yes.
Is life easier? Also, so much yes.
In that time I've had plenty of time to think of what happens next. I decided I'm done selling my labor to someone who gets more out of it per hour than I do. I've got some ideas on things I could make that I think people would want to buy. People not like me, who buy things that simply don't further their own existence. I had a side hustle like that once, I can do it again.
So yeah, I've been a really pathetic, miserly, piece of shit, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can figure out how to do the same.
I can't really think of anything scarier to the assholes that depend on us to consume bullshit products than a bunch of able bodied people who decided to just hoard their hard earned money by not supporting their bullshit anymore.
I know that many, many people won't able to, they know how to set a trap and too many of us are stuck in it. But if you can somehow manage to pile up a little bit of money and then just coast on it while ignoring the needless products we're told we need, you should totally do it.