My Minimalist Story, Part 3: My Life in a Duffel Bag: For six weeks this summer, I lived my minimalist dream—residing in hotels, with all my possessions in a single duffel bag. My husband and I purged almost all of our stuff, and sold our house at the end of July. However, we still had to wait several weeks for our visas to be processed before we could move to the UK. In the meantime, we “lived” in a series of hotels, as we wrapped up our old life and prepared for the new… {read more}
My Minimalist Story, Part 4: Our Dirty Secret: From the time we decided to move overseas, my husband and I fantasized about owning nothing more than we could carry with us. We were determined to get rid of all of our possessions, and pare down our lives to a single suitcase each. We almost achieved our goal. But in our final week of purging, we were weakened by the uncertainty of our plans. My husband had a job offer in the UK, but it was contingent upon us receiving our visas—which, given strict new immigration laws, was not guaranteed… {read more}
I read your post on traveling light and agree this is the best feeling. When my family uprooted to Belize from southern California, we moved for a year with all our possessions in two suitcases each, plus a dog in her crate. Now, back in OC, California, clutter is slowly accumulating and I shall follow your advice on dumping the stuff from drawers and then putting it back, only if necessary. The less clutter, the happier I am. Thanks for the tips.
At the moment we’re looking into the idea of living from our backpacks. It can be hard to go on photography trips as they’re far from home and where we want to go there is no accommodation (not that we’d pay for it anyway).
I had read an article on far beyond the stars which talked about living from your backpack which really got me thinking. I love the thought of this lifestyle but it’s a big plunge and would prevent us from being able to run the business we are now. Instead I thought, why can’t we just live like this on the photo trips.
That’s the plan now, live from our packs on the trips. My hope is that we will learn a lot from it too and bring this into our normal lives at home. We already have a very minimalist home with very few possessions but we could certainly be more mobile.
I enjoy reading blogs on minimalism. And I do like the idea of travelling light.
But…
Clutter being an unnecessary burden, I don’t look upon needed items as an extravagance, but tools to help manage my way through life.
I do appliance repair. I realize I use more tools for a simple repair than some minimalists have for their total number of possessions.
This is a good point. Realistically there are some jobs that we do need to be done, some of these jobs require more tools than others. Take farming for instance. We all need food to survive, but to feed the sheer amount of people alive today it takes some help from equipment to make this a reality.
Of course in a perfect world we would probably all grow our own food. It would be fresher, cheaper and better for the environment. I guess it just shows there’s no one answer and we have to be open minded to everyones needs.
I love the peaks into your life a year ago. I didn’t read your site then, so it is kind of like a little history lesson.
Hi Francine! I have been following you with my Google Reader for about a month since my husband and I have started changing our lives and becoming more minimalist – not only with the stuff we own but the food we eat and ways we spend our time. It is amazing what you feel when you experience the Joy of Less. I have been anxious to read your book, I hope I win your give away!
I organize people’s closets, basements, garages, craft rooms, etc. for a charity donation. It is amazing the amount of money people spend on things they don’t need or use. Sheets that don’t fit the beds. Clothing with the labels on. Hobby supplies that were never opened. I don’t go to my own daughter’s apartment because she has boxes and boxes of papers she hasn’t looked at in 10 years.