Some nice advice has been given, but i'd like to put some emphasis on part of BitCryptex and jackg's initial posts... They are correct, but it seems their posts have been overlooked...

Running a full node isn't necessary if you don't want to... If you have problems with the time it takes to do a full sync, or the amount of data you need to store, start looking at an SPV wallet.
An SPV wallet only downloads the block headers, not the complete blocks. A "full sync" of all headers happens in a matter of minutes and only uses a couple Mb on disk, and i find SPV wallets sufficient for most day-to-day task.
Let's be honest: it's a good thing for the network if a lot of people run full nodes, it's good for an enduser to verify all blocks and all transactions, but it isn't absolutely necessary for everybody to run such a full node if they are only going to perform enduser tasks. If we have several thousand full nodes, endusers can use SPV wallets without significant impact on the network's security (imho).

Granted, if you use an SPV wallet, you do rely on other nodes and you give away a small part of your privacy... But security-wise SPV wallets seem to be fine.
If you worry so much about synctime and diskusage, download and verify the latest version of electrum, or buy a ledger or trezor (both spv hardware wallets). By using a HW wallet, you'll even add an extra layer of security....