A self-branded "millionaire" says laziness was the key to her success - and working smarter is more important than working harder.

Pav Lertjitbanjong, 42, says she "wasted" most of her life working hard - but a failed marriage and £80k worth of debt forced her to turn things around.

Now, she earns £300k-a-year - despite working from home, staying in the same job and never working overtime.

Pav, a data scientist, from Chatham, New Jersey, US, said: “I call myself a lazy millionaire because I’ve made all my money without having to learn any new skills.

“I work from home, I don’t spend money on the gym, I hate cooking and cleaning and I don’t waste time going to networking events.

“I embrace the lazy lifestyle - and it’s made me so much more efficient.”

As the child of first-generation immigrants from Bangkok, Thailand, Pav says she felt she had to work “10 times harder” than everyone else.

At work, she often felt like a “people-pleaser” who had to say ‘yes’ to every opportunity - including overtime and networking events, even when she didn’t want to.

Pav also felt she needed to spend time working on her marriage - which ended in 2019.

“I always thought success came from working extremely hard, and losing yourself in the process,” she said.

“In the past, I always wanted to be a people-pleaser. I wanted to make my co-workers happy, so I spent a lot of time overworking and saying ‘yes’ to everyone.

“I wanted that promotion to get more money, and I devoted too much of my time towards it.

“As an immigrant, I felt like I had to work 10 times harder to get to where I wanted to be. But that’s not the case.”

Pav and her ex-husband finalised their divorce in March 2020 - but the legal fees left her £80k in debt.

She didn’t take any assets away with her - leaving her with “virtually nothing”.

But, wanting to clear her debts and become financially independent, Pav decided to change the way she worked and embrace a “lazy” work ethic.

She said: “I walked away from my marriage with nothing, right before Covid hit.

“In the US, the default ruling is to split your assets 50/50 in divorce, but I didn’t want to fight a long battle with my ex. I didn’t want to take anything with me.

“I just had this epiphany - I was thinking about how people float through life so easily, they don’t have to burn themselves out and they work smart, not hard.

“I knew I needed to shift my mindset - so I tried the laziness approach.”

Pav decided to re-evaluate how she was going to get a promotion - including making a list of all the key people in the company and how she was going to get them on-side.

She stopped attending networking events and started being more selective with her friends - allowing successful people into her circle.

As well as this, she pursued her interest in investing and put money into stocks - which now makes her around £100k a year.

She also decided not to do any more overtime and to stick to the job she’s in - rather than spending time looking for another, higher-level role.

“I’m lazy, but I’m smart about it,” she said.

“I started to think ‘who in the company do I need to please to make more money?’

“I also knew my job would pay enough to keep me afloat, but I wanted disposable income, too. So I started investing in stocks - I’d always been interested in it.

“I knew it’d be hard for me to start a new job, so I just didn’t bother.”

Through investing and her promotion, which she got on January 2023, Pav was able to clear her £80k debt, as well as buy a three-bedroom house for £900k and travel to Bangkok to see her family.

While she prefers to keep money in her savings for a “rainy day”, Pav wants to splash the cash on her travel bucket list in 2024, including trips to see the Northern Lights, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Pav’s top tips for becoming lazy and rich -
1. Being efficient with your laziness - if you hate cooking every day, spend one day at the weekend batch-cooking for the rest of the week.
2. Create direct debits for all your bills so you don’t have to stay on top of them.
3. Don’t bother spending money on gym membership - just get your steps in when walking to get food.
4. Avoid networking events - unless you want to waste time making a bunch of acquaintances.