Any minamalists in the house?

[ThreeLittleBirds]

I have always been anal retentive about keeping my home clean. I blame it on my father who is a Navy dad and his need for perfection. Once I caught wind of the idea being a "minimalist"..i was hooked. I went through my house and did a clean sweep and removed a huge front porch full of stuff from our home...including our tv. I even do the 333 Project when it comes to my own wardrobe (check it out here http://www.theproject333.com/getting-started/) . It all sounds hard at first, but I never realized how much "stuff" added its own little weight to my shoulders.

Minimizing has saved us time, space and money. I can walk into Target, pick out three things I think I "need"....look at them...and put them down and walk out without spending a buck. It changes the entire way you think.

Just wondering if anyone here had found it to be as freeing as I have! In what ways has it made your life better? Harder?

[Caneel]

If it is working for you, I think that is awesome.  I have no doubt it is incredibly freeing.

I am no where near a minimalist but I certainly see the appeal.  I have been really successful in decluttering certain areas of our home and maintaining them too.  (Patting self on back...)  I have also stopped "buying"  I have to desperately need something before I will bring an item into my home.  Yet I have so far to go with the existing clutter.

[bignerpie]

Well hi there. 

I'm a minimalist because I was raised in the exact opposite way. My grandmother kept our house absolutely spotless, but there was stuff everywhere. Every flat surface was covered in knick knacks, and there was no white space on any walls. I'm not spending my entire life moving little trinkets around so I can dust.

I still ended up collecting a bunch of stuff, though, and I recently did a big purge. Actually, today I finished the last room- the kitchen. I'd been putting it off for a while. I love to cook, and I have a fairly large kitchen and a ton of gadgets. I didn't really get rid of much today, but at least I'm not opening cabinets wondering if half the crap in there is going to fall out on my head.

I LOVE the 333 project you linked! I did purge my closet and jewelry box, but I'd really like to go through it again. I tried to keep only items that would see me through pregnancy and nursing, plus those things that I just can't bear to get rid of. I've already gotten rid of all of my business clothes. I figured if I go back to work (which isn't too likely) that after 2 kids, none of it would fit me anyway. I have to admit that I didn't actually get rid of most of the clothes that I took out of my closet... I just moved them to another closet. 

What got me going was the book Organized Simplicity. I was tired of looking around my house and feeling overwhelmed by "stuff." Every drawer was full of junk, every closet packed full. The rest of my house looked great, but all the hidden places looked like an episode of Hoarders. Getting rid of all that stuff really helped my general stress level. I feel like I have room to breathe now.

[zoebird]

yes, it is totally awesome. :)

our only issue is that none of our line drying dried this week, because of the ice/snow storms, and our tumble dryer isn't working, so we had to line dry indoors, which was messy and made me crazy. lol but, at least the clothes dried in a day, and now I just have one more load to dry this way.

but, the issue really was that we all ran out of clothes. :) because we only have enough for several days (3-4), and well, the clothes weren't dry. so we wore slightly wet clothes. 

otherwise, I love living minimally. it's the best!

[MonkeyPrincess]

I have reached a comfortable level of minimalism for my life. When I think about how much stuff I have, it still seems like so much, but if I got rid of anything else, it would not improve the quality of my life, if that makes sense. I have never tried to get to a certain number of belongings, or a certain number of things to declutter, its just what works.

I have five kids, but we have less than half the stuff of families we know that have half the people.

Edited by MonkeyPrincess - 8/20/11 at 7:22am

[Ramzubo]

I told dh we're Minimalers. We're not minimalist in the stark sense of the word, I like an inviting, comfy house.

We live by the mantra "Don't use, don't love it?, don't need it! I think we're pretty close to the 333 project for clothes except the harsh winters add on to our basics. We stay away from collectibles and fun kitchen gadgets (I think one knife covers like 100 things they sale at kitchen stores). This really cuts down on cleaning time and has been great. Less time cleaning and putting away stuff means more fun family time.

The only warning I have is to not jump in so fast that you end up getting rid of stuff you might later need. Whenever I wasn't sure about donating something, I set it aside and reevaluated in in a couple of months. Sometimes a week later I was looking for that item and sometimes I knew in a few months that I definitely could live without it.

Good Luck!

[ThreeLittleBirds]

I think the kitchen is the hardest place for me to learn to minimize things I really dont need. Now that we are renting a townhouse and I have a kitchen the size of my thumb I have had to learn to cut back on stuff to make counter space. Coffee maker for example. Im the only one that drinks it and if and when I do, its only a cup. So the coffee maker went out the door. Instead I have a french press that i can take out to make a cup, clean, put back in the cupboard. Still more work to be done in the kitchen. I need to let go of some cookbooks. Speaking of cookbooks...im pretty awful with minimizing my book collection in general. i want to hang on to every book I have ever owned. Im working on letting go of some. Slowly lol

[Ramzubo]

Ha I too ditched the coffee machine for the french press since I'm the only coffee drinker!

I try to get books from the library. Growing up this would be the one area that overran our house, books, books everywhere. I'm looking for a Kindle now to try ebook instead. I made a big master binder for recipes. It was not fun to do, but now is so much easier to meal plan. I don't waste my time trying to find one recipe in a book and whenever I find a new one I just print it out and add it to the binder...love my binder.

[ThreeLittleBirds]

oh i love your binder idea! do you hole punch the recipes?

[bignerpie]

You will not regret getting a Kindle! I got one for Christmas, and I love it. So far, I've only found two books I really wanted to read that wasn't available for it. One I was able to borrow, and the other I'm just going to have to buy (used, if I can find it). My books are the one thing I've never been able to part with. I need to get past my attachment to them. I've thought about slowly replacing them with the Kindle versions, but I don't like the idea of paying for them twice. 

I tried the binder idea for recipes, but it didn't work for me. I bought a copy of The Recipe Manager, and when I come across a recipe online, I just copy and paste it in there. I have a folder in my filing cabinet full of torn out pages from magazines with recipes that need to be copied in there, too. I like being able to search by keyword to find what I want because I could never keep a binder organized enough.

[Ramzubo]

Originally Posted by ThreeLittleBirds 

oh i love your binder idea! do you hole punch the recipes?

Yes, I just used a whole punched one. Bignerpie's online system sounds really good too. I tried one online recipe box, but for some reason I have a hard time going through the tabs to pick out a meal. We do weekly meal plans and try to mix up what we eat so the binder is easy for me to pick recipes based on what meat, pasta, soups, vegetarian dishes are on sale and so on.

[ThreeLittleBirds]

I might try this binder idea. We weekly plan also and I need a better way to flip through and find recipes that i know we have tried and like!

[ZakareyasMama]

I'm trying too!

I don't think I could do Project 333 exactly. I love making jewelry and I have a lot that was given to me (see the bangle photo lol). But I don't feel overwhelmed by it because it's all arranged nicely and some of it is displayed. I don't have too many clothes, but I do have a bunch of scarves and I have a lot of cute clothes I only wear around the house and to parties. For daily wear outside the house, I tend to mix and match a handful of items. When I was teaching and my students had to look at me every day I felt more obligated to wear more different things. Now I can wear the same thing two days in a row (provide there's no baby barf on it!). I do keep separate seasonal clothing boxes so I don't get sick of wearing the same things. North Carolina has four seasons (as compared with where I grew up) and so I find it's fun to open up a box of "fall" clothes in late September. It's like getting a new wardrobe! Yeah a lot of the things I could wear in the summer or layer in the winter, but I like to change it up. 

I just minimized my kitchen last month. There's a thread on here about it. I don't have many recipe books. I like to write my recipes down in a crusty little notebook. Now that I have an iPad there are so many apps for organizing them... my only fear about that is bringing my beautiful iPad into the kitchen with my messy cooking hands... 

[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by ThreeLittleBirds 

Just wondering if anyone here had found it to be as freeing as I have! In what ways has it made your life better? Harder?

We lived overseas for much of 2011 and just recently returned home to our own house.  Before we left, we did a huge de-cluttering.  And I mean huge.  I estimate that we got rid of half of our belongings.  Now that we are home, I have been so happy with our home.  

We have the minimum to be comfortable.  As I sit here in the living room, I see comfort and simplicity.  We have enough and just enough.  It is easy to keep clean and for the first time, the kids can keep their things picked up and tidy.  

The kitchen is simple to cook in, I can keep up with our minimal laundry, I can pick up and vacuum downstairs in 20-30 minutes, which means that I actually get the job done and the house stays cleaner.  

We do get some funny comments from friends.  They think it is strange that we have lived here for 8 years, have 3 kids and still have so little stuff.  I want to tell them that minimizing our belongings was really a very selfish move on our part.  We have less physical stuff, but we have so much more time and peace.  I am a happier mom and wife.  I can keep up!   And I am 5 months pregnant with a dh who works a lot of hours.  But for the first time, I do not feel overwhelmed by my home.  

And you know what?  I still see things that we can get let go.  I have my eye on 3 books on the bookshelf that need to go and some dishes to return to a friend.  I think I will be de-cluttering for the rest of my days.  

[zoebird]

I agree with the idea "comfort and simplicity." by living minimally, I don't have  "cold stark" home, but rather a home that is simple and comfortable.

We had to dry all of our laundry inside this week (due to snow! :) ), and the house was a "mess!!!!!" we were stressed. So, we noted that the laundry was finally dry, and so we picked that up and put it away. Then we picked up DSs toys, and I picked up the kitchen after breakfast. It took about 30-40 minutes all told. And guess what? the house is now clean and tidy! 

I love that!

[mamaecho]

Don't forget it makes it much, much easier to move ;)

[LVNTEXAS]

I am and I love it. I am paying down my debt at a fast pace, I have time to spend doing things with my son, animal rescue and my church and I don't worry about having to have things or take care of them. I recently purchases a beautiful trailer on some wonderful property. I am fixing it up slowly, having spent this past weekend painting her insides. I have just what and my son need and I am collecting items so I can foster some dogs one day. I would like to build a kennel with solar power for them that is attached to a tiny home I want to build. It has given me great focus on what I really want to do with the rest of my life. It is very freeing and it feels great to be finally living. I don't count things but I definitely have less than most. I keep what I need and give what I can to others who can use it. I like to keep my house pretty clean and neat and minimalism makes it easy. If I want to completely scrub down everything, it only takes me a good 2 hours to make it sparkle, otherwise I just do a little each day, for about 20 minutes. With just the 2 of us, it is very simple. I have a dog and 2 cats and it much easier to keep up with them now. I also have been spending a lot more time swimming and walking with my son, so I lost a little more weight. YIPPPEEE!! I plan on putting in some square foot gardens as soon as I come across the materials. I will get the forms in this fall and then put in some good dirt, mulch and a little manure and let it sit over winter. Can't wait.

[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by LVNTEXAS 

 I plan on putting in some square foot gardens as soon as I come across the materials. I will get the forms in this fall and then put in some good dirt, mulch and a little manure and let it sit over winter. Can't wait.

Good luck with your garden!   This has been the nicest aspect of having a simpler home -- I have more time for a big garden!   I love it and I am so, so happy when I work in my garden.  I think that is a big aspect of simpler living -- choosing where we spend our time and energy.  A smaller, simpler home means that we can focus on the things we love -- like having a garden, or fostering dogs, or going to church.  Seems like we were always meant to live this way, but got off track somewhere.  

[sunflower.mama]

Originally Posted by ThreeLittleBirds 

oh i love your binder idea! do you hole punch the recipes?

I do this, plus you can buy plastic sleeves that hold 4x6 photos, so I slip my index card recipes into those. I also have some 8.5x11 clear plastic sleeves that I can use for recipes I have clipped from magazines etc.  They are more durable this way as well as wipeable.  Love it.  I am always pulling a recipe out of the newspaper.  Then the whole binder is sorted by veggie, chicken dish, appetizer, what have you.

[ThreeLittleBirds]

We moved during the "plant your garden" time this year, then two weeks later had our wedding. I want to plant a fall garden and the husband and I are going to sit down this week and discuss and plan. Start with something small (we live in a townhouse). But i feel its such a waste to have the space in the yard and NOT grow some of our own food if we can. Part of living minimally is minimizing the amount of stuff you buy. Making as much of it as you can yourself.