I’m all about the less is more philosophy, and 2015 was a year of a lot of change and intentional minimalism.
“Minimalism is not defined by what is not there but by the rightness of
what is and the richness with which this is experienced.”
-John Pawson
-John Pawson
This year, the main catalyst for minimalism was not just scarcity and necessity. I knew that we were going to move past the big, long awaited goal of paying off my husband's school loans and I wanted to develop habits and make room for new dreams.
1) We worked hard this year and kept a tight spending budget and a small monthly allowance for each of us. By October we reached out financial goals but decided to keep the budget as is.
2) My diet was "minimized" by eating not just strictly vegan, but also by cutting out processed and fried foods.
3) We started using up the care products we have and one by one replaced them with natural, plant-based alternatives.
4) We renewed our HIVE transportation pass and enjoy walking or taking the trains and busses to work and play. So glad we sold that damn car.
5) We kept a paper shopping bad in our coat closet for donations. To my surprise we filled this bag up every 2-3 months and carried it to our local thrift store.
6) We went through all of our paperwork, shredded the outdated stuff, digitized most documents by scanning them, and making one small folder that holds all of our important original documents. It is nice to know that it is now so compact, organized and in one place.
7) I read Mari Kondo's book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up and came to some strange realizations. One, that I still feel like a hoarder when I make a pile of one kind of my belongings to evaluate them. And two, that have not been shopping in years, so the clothing I own are things I purchased 5 or 7 years ago or they are actually hand me downs. At the moment I own two big storage boxes (about 71qt.) full of clothes. This is not that crazy much and I never saw anything wrong with it. I can make do with what I have, however, many of my things are worn thin or out, breaking one by one, or they are items I wore in my early twenties in college or to the beach. I no longer live by the ocean and I should probably have things that reflect my current lifestyle and needs. And this leads us to the last realization I made when working through Ms. Kondo's book: The fact that I am easily cold and I have no wardrobe to keep me warm. I honestly don't know why.
8) Spencer and I started capsule dressing and we are in love with it. I posted about it here, here and here.
I feel like we made so much progress in 2015. I’d love to hear about your year of minimalism if you care to share.
Return to Calendar here.
1) We worked hard this year and kept a tight spending budget and a small monthly allowance for each of us. By October we reached out financial goals but decided to keep the budget as is.
2) My diet was "minimized" by eating not just strictly vegan, but also by cutting out processed and fried foods.
3) We started using up the care products we have and one by one replaced them with natural, plant-based alternatives.
4) We renewed our HIVE transportation pass and enjoy walking or taking the trains and busses to work and play. So glad we sold that damn car.
5) We kept a paper shopping bad in our coat closet for donations. To my surprise we filled this bag up every 2-3 months and carried it to our local thrift store.
6) We went through all of our paperwork, shredded the outdated stuff, digitized most documents by scanning them, and making one small folder that holds all of our important original documents. It is nice to know that it is now so compact, organized and in one place.
7) I read Mari Kondo's book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up and came to some strange realizations. One, that I still feel like a hoarder when I make a pile of one kind of my belongings to evaluate them. And two, that have not been shopping in years, so the clothing I own are things I purchased 5 or 7 years ago or they are actually hand me downs. At the moment I own two big storage boxes (about 71qt.) full of clothes. This is not that crazy much and I never saw anything wrong with it. I can make do with what I have, however, many of my things are worn thin or out, breaking one by one, or they are items I wore in my early twenties in college or to the beach. I no longer live by the ocean and I should probably have things that reflect my current lifestyle and needs. And this leads us to the last realization I made when working through Ms. Kondo's book: The fact that I am easily cold and I have no wardrobe to keep me warm. I honestly don't know why.
8) Spencer and I started capsule dressing and we are in love with it. I posted about it here, here and here.
I feel like we made so much progress in 2015. I’d love to hear about your year of minimalism if you care to share.
Return to Calendar here.
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