I love reading about being mindful with money. My job makes up the bulk of our income so I am in no rush to pack up my nine to five and focus on writing/side hustle/doing nothing, that and I love my job because I get to learn and grow and help people.
I am mindful about money and that means I am considered about what I buy. I buy everything I want, but I am not a big fan of ‘stuff’. I would go as far as self defining as a minimalist but I am not sure if there is a criteria to meet his definition and looking at the kids rooms I am not sure I would technically qualify!
My kids like a hamburger (please read BTW below), but I hate the gifts. In the past those gifts made it home but then never seemed to find one there. We started to feel guilty about the landfill status of this stuff but rather than tell the kids they are the only ones getting a ‘happy’ meal that don’t get the tat, we discussed the impact the toys were having on the environment. THEY decided to stop getting the meal and ordered the items separately so as not to get the single use plastics item. Delighted parents, ethical empowered and creative kids making informed decisions for the good of the whole not just for themselves.
If you’re reading this you are very likely to have heard, read and watched the Konmari method. Marie Kondo tells us how to go through our homes in sequential order and how to get rid of the stuff that burdens us. Marie tells us how to get rid of the stuff that is physically holding us back so we have the time and space to get on with the things that propel us forward. Well that is my take on the book and the method.
My house is not a Zen like state of light and being but I regularly review all the cupboards and storage units in the house making sure everything we have has a ‘home’ (a fundamental principle of order). Like most normal families we do manage to accumulate junk on most of the flat surfaces but in a focused mood I can usually generate a few bags for charity, some for Free Cycle and some for the bin (recycled where possible of course). It is a very cathartic and satisfying experience.
A consequence of wanting to get rid of clutter is that it changes your mind on going shopping in the first place. Having first hand experience of how much space one has at home and how nice it is to open a drawer and see everything at first glance, you do develop a distinct feeling that adding more stuff in is not the solution, getting it out is.
One of my take aways from the fabulous Minimalists pod casts is that when you store those ‘just in case’ items, like an electrical cable for an item long ago defunct it generally costs less than £30 (well, they actually said $30 but I am British) to replace it. It is totally true and avoids keeping a huge box full of them to find ‘the one’ later on (as a very value based person I REALLY struggle with a re purchase but funnily enough most people will have a cable in their garage so if you ask around you can usually unburden someone else of their ‘just in case’ tat).
Keeping all the above in mind means you spend less, help save the planet through every one-less purchase-you-don’t-make at a time, help save the planet and live in a tidier house. How’s that for motivation to de-clutter?
By the way….
I have no issue with fast food chains per se and believe that they can be held to a higher standard than other companies doing similar things. I do have an issue with governments allowing companies to do extreme things to ‘food fit for consumption’. When you learn the details it is far from how food is prepared in usual home kitchens and the industrial processes do not make it acceptable in my opinion. I don’t understand why industrial food preparation seems to have free reign in certain countries. The best way to protest this is to not to eat that shit.
MrsSlimmer 