Mini Me

I'm currently on the journey to a more minimalist lifestyle. For me, that just means less lusting after stuff, less consuming, and less stuff in general in my home. We have a modest-size home, and the rooms are fairly small so the minimalist thing works well. I'm thinking about making May my Month of Minimalism to help me stay focused. My biggest challenge is clutter: I don't deal with it well. So I'm thinking about writing a series of posts related to the whole minimalism/home organization/simplicity thing. Starting here.

My whole "living with less" thing really got started when the Homeboy and I moved to Northern California. I went there for an Americorps volunteer position, which meant I wasn't going to be making any money and thus, we'd be living as po' folk. We didn't know much about our living situation before we moved, and couldn't afford to take anything more than my car and a small U-Haul towed behind it, so we only took what we could fit--only what was necessary. So before we moved, I spent days packing up our belongings and sorting them: To Move or To Store.

Fast forward to 2009, after we moved back to the Midwest when my Americorps commitment had ended and bought a house. When we moved in, we designated one of our bedrooms as the staging area with all our boxes from the stuff we had in CA to the stuff we stored. About four months later, the stuff we had stored was all still in boxes, because I discovered we really didn't need any of that stuff anymore.

Just recently I found a box full of extra kitchen stuff--dishes and glassware mostly--that I had stored in my in-laws' home. The box is sitting in my kitchen, untouched, because I don't have room for most of it and, more importantly, I don't need or even want it around.

All this, combined with my fervent following of Zen Habits has really helped change my attitude about stuff. I definitely used to appreciate things like a fabulous shoe collection, designer handbags, cool kitchen gadgetry, etc., but now? I only want to have what's essential. Mostly because, for me, it means a more organized and clean home, and also because I no longer care/lust over things, I can save a lot of money.

I just read this post today about "Losing the Lust for New Things" at Everyday Minimalist, which I loved. Check it out if you're interested!