Going Minimalist means something different for everyone. Sometimes, people hear about minimalism and think of the people on Cable TV living in an empty bamboo floored room with one bowl, one spoon, and sleeping on the floor. No, thank you.
Minimalism can be that extreme if you want it to be, but for most of us, we like a good comfortable bed.
To me, minimalism makes life easier. Life should only be as complex as you need it to be.
Here are some of the tips and tricks we use to minimalize our lives and make life easier while creating more room for the things we really enjoy.
Minimalist Your Closet
One of the first things people start minimalizing when they decide to go minimalist is their closet.
How many outfits, tops, bottoms, jackets, shoes, accessories, etc. do you own?
When you get ready in the morning, how long does it take you? Choosing an outfit? Picking the right accessories? And the shoes?
Before I started minimizing my wardrobe, I was the classic “leave a whole pile of discarded clothes on the bed as I rush out the door every morning.”
I slowly started to realize that I had a whole closet full of clothes, but I didn’t even like wearing a lot of them.
My minimalist closet started when I found a shirt I absolutely loved. I loved it so much, I bought it in every color.
The fit and the fabric were great. And it could work for almost every occasion with the right accessories.
I got rid of all those shirts I wasn’t a fan of.
Next, I found a pair of shorts I loved. (I don’t wear long pants very often in Hawaii.) I got a few pairs and donated all the other pants that just didn’t fit right after having babies.
I found a few more favorites and purged the rest. Now, I can walk to my closet and grab whatever shirt is in front and know I will feel good. Same with pants. It saves so much time and hassle.
My Minimalist Closet
My closet now consists of about:
- 7 or 8 favorite tanktops
- 5-7 sleeved shirts (again, Hawaii)
- 8 sleep tanks and 8 sleep shirts (usually favorite shirts that got stains or holes)
- 5 shorts
- 2-3 long pants
- 3-5 t-shirt dresses (with pockets)
- 2 more dressy dresses for weddings or such
- 3 sweaters- (all different warmths)
- 1 rain jacket
- 1 heavier jacket for when we visit family on the mainland
We do laundry at least once a week, so there is no reason to have more than that amount in my closet.
Mr. Bean has a similar assortment, but with work shirts and training shirts instead of dresses and tanktops.
Having a minimalist closet creates so much more freedom of your time and mental energy
- Less Laundry to wash and fold
- Easier to get dressed in the morning
- Takes up less room
If you’re looking to minimalize YOUR closet:
- Look for quality items that feel good and will last a few years (so many “fast fashion” items are thin and fall apart after only a few washes. Or scratchy wool or acrilic sweaters, eck!)
- If you find an item you absolutly love, get it in a few different colors (Or pull a Mark Zuckerburg and buy a whole bunch of the same color to cut down your mental choices even more!
- Get rid of anything that doesn’t automatically make you feel like a million bucks when you put it on (Good bye pre-pregnancy jeans that make me feel bad. If I ever get back to that size, I’ll just buy new ones as a celebration!)
Minimalist the Rest of Your House
Once your closet is stocked with only your favorite items, feel free to move to different rooms around your house and get rid of the stuff that you just don’t need or seriously bothers you:
- Those chipped coffee cups that no one wants to use and always get pushed to the back of the cupboard
- The baby books or puzzels that are all ripped or no longer age appropriate for your kids
- Shampoo bottles with 3 drops in them that you’re waiting to pour into the new bottles. (I’m so guilty of this, just do it already)
- A stack of old magazines or junk mail that you just haven’t gotten around to. Get that junk off your table and out of your life! It’s just taking up physical and mental space.
As you slowly get rid of the excess and keep only the things you love and need, you will begin to feel a greater calm in your home. It’s pretty magical how it works.
Check out Marie Kondo’s book if you want a full rundown on how to declutter. I definitely enjoyed listening to the audiobook while folding clothes.
Minimalist Your House
Speaking of minimalizing your home, you can also look at options to minimalize your house.
The American Dream has been to buy the biggest house with the fanciest yard for too long.
In an attempt to buy the biggest and best house they can afford, many people are moving farther and farther into the suburbs to make it happen.
In their search for an awesome house and yard for their kids to play in, many families are giving up actually spending time with those kids.
If a parent’s job is in the city, but their house is a 45-minute drive from their beautiful suburb, they are giving up an hour and a half each day to their commute.
A beautiful yard also takes maintenance to keep up.
Between mowing, hedging, raking leaves, and whatever else, you are giving up hours every month to maintain the yard, instead of playing in it. Or you have to pay a “yard guy” to care for it for you, then there is an added cost instead.
Same with home maintenance. Fixing the garbage disposal. Patching the hole in the wall. And cleaning. So much cleaning!
If you find yard or home maintenance extremely calming, then, by all means, continue enjoying it.
But if you’re like me and become extremely stressed by an excessively messy house or just physically can’t handle hours of cleaning, it might actually make sense to look at minimalizing your house.
Down Size
I’ve mentioned in my past article, We Love Our Small Home.
Mr. Bean got tired of his 25-45 minute commute every day so we found a condo less than 10 minutes away from his job.
He gets home earlier and arrives calmer. This allows him to spend more quality time with me and the kids plus he’s not all riled up from traffic stress. He can plan things he enjoys, like exercise or playing with the kids after work more easily.
The simple move across town, gave him back almost 250 hours a year! That’s over 10 days!
By living in a smaller home, I have less to clean too! The kids and I can do a quick clean and have the whole house picked up and vacuumed in less than half an hour.
We may not have the big yard we once had, but we have a playground and pool on the property with multiple parks within walking distance. (Check out some of the free activities we participate in through our parks). And we don’t have to rake a single leaf.
I know a small home definitely doesn’t suit many people. And it is totally a personal decision.
But if you are feeling overwhelmed with the time and energy your house is taking from you, you might just want to reconsider the huge house and yard and look for a more minimalist house.
Minimalist Your Schedule
How often have you looked at your upcoming calendar and just felt overwhelmed?
Work, meetings, kid’s activities, social events, errands. There’s just so much to do!
What if you were to just say “no”?
When you’ve got so many balls in the air, it can feel like if you take a breath, the whole world will fall apart.
But more often than not, those crazy schedules are of our own doing.
Try it, look at your calendar, and pretend you are horribly ill.
If you were to miss everything on your calendar for a week, what would actually have long-term effects?
- Yes, you need to show up for work. But do you need to attend every single meeting your department has?
- Your child loves their soccer team! But do they also need to take piano, gymnastics, and art classes?
- You want to hang out with your friends! But do you need to attend that birthday party across town at the busy bar where you hate the music?
Take a moment to really look at your schedule and decide if you and your family truly enjoy being this busy.
Sometimes, it feels like you need to do all the things. Being busy has become a badge of honor!
But we also need to make time to relax. Time to spend time with our family and friends in a no-pressure situation. To just be.
Decide what is really important to you and begin saying “no” to the unnecessary time traps in your life.
Give yourself time to breathe.
How We Minimized our Schedule
As a homeschooling family, sometimes it feels like we need to do ALL the things in order to “keep up” with regular school families:
- Co-ops
- Sports/Activities
- Tutoring
- Social Events
Constantly being on the go became too hard. The kids and I were constantly tired and the house was a disaster as it was our designated drop zone between activities.
2020 Quarantine actually gave us a chance to realize just how busy we were. Having that year where we couldn’t go out and do anything was so relaxing.
So when activities started back up, we made sure to put designated “home” days on our calendar. We would clean the house a bit and relax.
At least one weekday and one weekend day, we try to have nothing scheduled. If anything, these days might include washing laundry or heading to the beach with Grandpa, but that’s it.
Try it yourself. Slowly begin removing items on your calendar.
As kids’ sports seasons end, limit the amount you sign up for next season.
Don’t be afraid to say “no, thank you” when people ask you to attend social events you really don’t want to go to.
If your friend is throwing a birthday party at an overly expensive restaurant with a bunch of people you don’t know, you can always suggest having a quiet lunch together with a smaller group on another day.
Keep your calendar respectful of what’s important to you.
Organize your schedule to make time for the things you really enjoy. Maybe even schedule them into your calendar. And limit the things that suck your energy and happiness.
Doing this will give you so much more freedom and calm.
Minimalist Your Finances
Finances are a topic that so many people are stressed out about because they think it is complex and difficult. Talking about money has been taboo in our culture for so long, many are intimidated to discuss their own finances with people close to them, even their spouses.
Let’s make money less taboo. Less intimidating.
One of the best ways to make money less intimidating is to make it automatic.
Take a few hours to go through your finances and figure out where your money is really going. Check credit card statements, debit statements, and cash receipts.
Go through the last few months.
- List your regular bills? (rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, tuition, etc.)
- What are your savings goals and how much do they cost? (retirement, vacations, new car, etc.)
- How much do you spend on Needs? (gas, groceries, medical bills, etc)
- What are your Wants and how much to they cost? (Daily coffee, nail salon, jiu-jitsu classes, etc)
Once you know where your money Needs to go and also where you Want it to go, you can begin minimizing your money interactions by making everything automatic.
How I make it Automatic
Every 2 weeks, Mr. Bean’s paycheck is deposited into our basic checking account on Friday.
Automatic Transfers
On Saturday, the bank transfer fairies, that I have set up long ago automatically through our bank at Ally, take over and sends every necessary dollar to its designated account:
- Household expenses- rent, utilities, and little bit extra, just in case a bill is extra high one month
- Monthly Needs Spending- Groceries, gas, etc
- Expected Expenses Accounts- Annual life insurance payments, semi-annual car insurance payments, Car maintinance/registration and future car replacement savings, medical expenses, etc.
- Savings Goals- Vacation Fund, Christmas/Birthday Fund, etc. (Where you should put your Savings based on when you need it)
- Retirement and Investing Goals- Roth IRAs, kids’ 529, Kids’ investments, regular brokerage account
By Monday, every need has been taken care of and whatever is left in the bank account is free to spend on whatever we want!
Automatic Bill Pay
In addition to the magical transfer fairies, I have also set up automatic bill pay through our bank for many of our bills:
- Our Rent check is automatically mailed to our landlord every month, 3 days before the 1st
- The Internet bill is auto paid through Ally becuase it rarely changes and costs extra to pay by credit card (they include your account number and everything to ensure the payment is credited to the correct account)
- Regular bills like Netflix Subscriptions, Cell Phone, Dropps Laundry Subscription, kids’ gymnastics, etc. are set to automatically charge to my credit card to earn me bonus points every month. I then set up automatic payments for the credit card they go on for the amount of those bills so I never have to even think about them.
- I Set up automatic Minimum payments on all of my credit cards as soon as I open them.
- In order to keep your credit score high, you never want to have a late payment. Things happen that could make you miss a payment if you’re trying to do it yourself every month: Vacations, using a seldom used card, or whatever.
- By making sure that at least the minimum payment will automatically be paid, you can save yourself a lot of headache and credit score decreases.
How I Spend Time on Money
Because almost all of our bills and payments are set to automatic, I spend maybe 15 minutes, twice a month handling our money.
- We pay our power bill directly through Ally’s Bill Pay because it is a bill that can change a lot depending on the season, and the kids need to track it for their monthly payment.
- I go through each of our credit cards/bank statements for accuracy and pay them off
- We buy pretty much everything on credit cards in order to get the cash back and have protection for wrong charges. But I do NOT recommend this for anyone who is paying off debt or has had debt difficulties in the past.
By making almost everything automatic, all of our bills are paid on time, our savings/retirement accounts are growing, and I spend less than half an hour each month handling our money.
The calm of knowing that I don’t constantly have to be keeping track of payment dates is so nice.
Irregular Paychecks
Now, I know we are lucky in that we have a pretty regular paycheck that allows these automatic transfers to be made. Not everyone has that.
If you have a more sporadic paycheck, make sure to go through your bills and build expected expenses accounts.
Set yourself a monthly budget, closer to your expected lower-income months, and save the difference in higher pay months
By building up your accounts on higher paycheck months, you will more easily be able to handle low paycheck months.
Wrap Up
Life in today’s busy world can become hectic and stressful without even trying!
By purposely building a more minimalist approach to life, you can actively cut out the excess that is negatively affecting you and your family. Make room for the things that bring you real joy and contentment!
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