Every Monday I post Real Life Minimalists, a profile of one of my readers in their own words. If you’d like to participate, click here for details.
This week we have an update from Bethany, who was first featured as a Real Life Minimalist in June 2012. She shares with us the exciting changes of the last two years, and invites you to read more about her family’s new adventure on her blog.
Bethany writes:
In the summer of 2012, while cruising our 29-foot sailboat, I shared my story with all of you. That was an incredible summer, as my family of 3 lived aboard for a total of 91 days. Housework took 5 minutes each morning, so we had time to go out and enjoy the day. We loved the boating community, and we loved the lifestyle.
Then it was time to return to reality.
This was the reality of houses, of people being walled in by possessions, of people doing all they can to avoid interacting with one another. We didn’t feel at home here; we didn’t belong. My daughter often cried that she wanted to go back to Moonraker. I was working a job that I didn’t like, so that I could pay for a house I wasn’t crazy about, in a town where I didn’t want to live. All we had was the promise of 91 days of bliss. 91 days out of 365.
After an incredibly challenging winter of soul searching and mental decluttering, we decided to leave it all behind. That house didn’t love us, and life was too short to spend in an unhappy situation. Over the summer of 2013, instead of launching Moonraker, we emptied out our 4-bedroom house. We kept whatever possessions would fit into our Volvo station wagon and a small U-haul trailer, and drove 1300 miles away, to Houston.
For a year, we lived very simply in an apartment. We loved city life! There was so much to do nearby, and so many free activities for our daughter, that owning a lot of possessions really wasn’t necessary. There was also a stronger sense of community that had been lacking in our previous town.
In July 2014, our next home found us. She is a 35 foot sailboat, built in 1966. Her very appropriate name is Breaking Tradition. It was love at first sight.
After three weeks of working frantically to make this boat into a home, our family was able to move onboard. Because we had so few possessions to begin with, emptying out the apartment took a couple days–rather than the months it took to empty the house. We now live in about 200 square feet of clean, uncluttered bliss.
This lifestyle has agreed very well with our daughter, who is 7 and has high-functioning autism. The rocking of the boat and tightness of her life jacket are soothing to her, and she loves having a slip close to the pool! She has plenty of opportunity to socialize and play with other kids, and she can also retreat to the familiarity of her v-berth bedroom. Owning a lot of possessions or even having a house is not necessary when you have a child with special needs.
Living in a small space, I have found minimalism to be a practical tool, rather than a set of rules to follow. In order to live comfortably and keep our boat uncluttered, we do without a number of things. We have no oven, we only have dishes for 3, and I only have 3 pans (a skillet, a saucepan, and a pressure cooker). My daughter has fewer toys than other kids, and our wardrobes consist of 5 outfits.
However, we do “break” a few rules that other minimalists follow. To start with, we have a television, hidden in one of our cupboards. We don’t have cable, but we do enjoy streaming Netflix and enjoying a family movie night. And to that end, we also store an electric corn popper. Yes, a single use appliance! It helps to feed our addiction. And we also have a Nintendo Wii, so that we can challenge each other to Mario Kart on rainy days.
All in all, we absolutely love our new lifestyle. As we sit in the cockpit, sipping iced tea and watching the sun set over the water, I can’t help but be grateful that we stopped following the rules and decided to follow our dreams instead.
{If you’d like to learn more about minimalist living, please consider reading my book, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide, or subscribing to my RSS feed.}
Wonderful story! :) Good job following your callings.
Thank you, Em. We’ve found that when we’re living the life we want to be living, everything falls into place. :-)
That’s such a beautiful story, your daughter is so lucky!
Thanks, Heather! I think she’ll write a book about her childhood someday. :-)
A delight to read! How wonderful the you figured out your needs and made the big changes necessary to acheive them. Inspirational.
Thank you, Ellen! It took some guts to get from the “I wish” to “Let’s do it” stage. :-) But now I can’t imagine living any other way.
Wonderfully written. I really appreciate the concluding thought about following your dreams and doing what works for your family. The pressure to conform is stifling -I’m happy that you found freedom!
What has helped us is remembering that well-meaning friends and family just want us to be happy. Sometimes it’s hard to understand that different people are happy in different situations. :-)
Lovely story! I’m with you on the popcorn. I have a Whirley Pop, which is gigantic… but I looove me some popcorn. I actually just replaced mine because the cat broke it. So much better than popcorn cooked in a regular ol’ pot.
I’m doing low carb right now, and you’re making me crave popcorn…yum…with butter… ;-)
You know I enjoy your blog, but I have to say – “life was too short to spend in an unhappy situation” – amen to that! Well said.
Thanks, Country Mouse! :-) And yes, I can’t believe I spent 10 years in an unhappy situation. I don’t intend to waste another day living like that.
The small space, living on the water, sounds like pure bliss! My family is going minimalist as well. And I would SO love to sell our house, and purchase a much smaller one. The heating costs, and the time it takes to clean it, I find to be ridiculous! There is more to life than that. Still working diligently on my husband, since he’s a minimalist in progress, lol!
Best of luck on your family’s journey, Sue! You never know where minimalism will take you…Three years ago, my husband had a huge garage full of mopeds and piles on unfinished projects all over our house!
Wow, that sounds wonderful! Like you, we live in a small space (condo) and since there are only two of us, we have very few dishes, pots and pans.
Hey, we loved our apartment! There is something to be said for not having to do any yard work or home maintenance.
Bethany, how lovely to hear your update, I remember reading your story first time around. Your words are beautiful and inspiring, but my favourite bit is the end. It’s so easy to follow the rules rather than your dreams – I’m glad your family had the courage and vision to break away from that. I also appreciate you talking about your ‘non-minimalist’ things. I think it’s easy sometimes to forget that minimalism is about living with what’s useful to you – so will look different to everyone! I too enjoy the escapism of a good TV programme or film; I think people can be needlessly snobbish about these media. Good luck and good living to you and yours!
Thank you for YOUR kind words, Polly!
I think that it is normal to become kind of dogmatic about a philosophy when you first adopt it. Just a part of gaining understanding. I’ve definitely become a much more “laid back” minimalist as the years have gone by!
Bethany, what a wonderful and inspiring post! How exciting would it be if they made a movie about your journey to minimalism? I would go see it, that’s for sure! :) Thank you for motivating me SO MUCH today! The future is indeed bright. Best of luck to you and your family!
A movie? I wonder who would play me! ;-) I am working on a book about our sailing adventures up north, but maybe starting with the latest leg of our journey would be even more interesting…Hmmm…. ;-)
I’m glad you found your perfect situation. I’m still getting rid of craft materials.
I have a condo with an empty bedroom I may rent out. We got rid of one car which was a huge change for us. There are many kinds of minimalism.
Craft stuff is tough. I love hobbies, but I would accumulate so much that I dreamed of using but never did! So I hear you there. I got rid of the scrapbook stuff, but I’ve kept some needle point, and projects to do with my daughter.
If you like scrapbooking, there is always digital scrapbooking, that you can do on a laptop. All of the fun, without all of the mess. That’s what I do, and then at the end of the year, I get my pages printed out in an 8×8 Shutterfly album. It takes up much less space than traditional albums. I have about 20 traditional scrapbooks I’ve done and I really regret the space they take up and am working on converting them to digital and Shutterfly. Another option if you are an Apple user at all, there is an app for iPhone and iPad, called Project Life and you can scrapbook right on your phone or iPad! It’s really made it simple for me & I actually enjoy scrapbooking again!
I’ve thought about that. My husband’s aunt has switched to digital, and she makes scrapbooks for her grandkids all time. It might make a fun grandma gift, for Beanie’s grandparents.
I thought of doing the same thing when I retire but the mooring fees of $800 to $1200 a month turned me off. How do you manage with all the expenses (not including the actual price of the boat)?
Where are you looking, Susan? I live in the Houston/Galveston area, and we only pay $370 a month for our slip, which includes water. Our electricity is never over $35 a month. And this is at one of the nicer marinas–we were paying $100 a month to slip our smaller boat, which we didn’t live on. Shop around–and get a used boat! Ours was only $5000. It needed some love, but mostly cosmetic things.
Bethany, what a beautiful story! We are a family of 4 (5 if my oldest is home from college) living in a 150 sq ft living quarters of a horse trailer. We’ve been in it for almost 4 months and my experience doesn’t sound nearly as pleasant as yours. We’ve paired down to about the same possessions it sounds like you have but it still seems a struggle. I think it’s because of where we have it parked–it’s just not an ideal situation, but the only possible place for now because we have to keep it close to our horses. We also have a TV and a Playstation that the girls play games on and we watch DVDs with. We don’t have internet and I miss our Netflix. I think another struggle is that we are in a climate (Oklahoma) where we have definite changes of seasons so you need clothes for all weather, in addition to mud stuff to deal with the horses. You have inspired me though to see where I might could clear out more things and to try to be more at peace with our situation. I think once we can get another place for the horses and move the trailer, it will be much better.
What an exciting way to live, Kathy! I’m curious to learn more about your living situation. What led you to move to the horse trailer? I have to say the climate is what keeps us from getting cabin fever. We live in Texas, so it’s nice most of the year. Not having Internet would be tough for me too!
And yes, location is the biggest thing. That was our #1 priority when we looked for a boat slip. Hopefully you are able to m ove to a more pleasant parking place soon!
You sound very content! What an excellent place to be! It’s nice to know people out there are living their dream!
Thank you, Jayleen! We definitely are very content. :-)
Sounds like a wonderful life for you and your family! My husband and I and our young adult daughter are enjoying apartment life in the city. You are so right that only living with what you need and love, and not being enslaved to either possessions or other people’s expectations, is the way to a peaceful, contented, and happy life. Congratulations on finding out what that looks like for you!
I never imagined I would like the city so much, Karen. Although I am looking forward to camping in the woods during Thanksgiving Week! ;-)
You are right, life is too short to life in an unhappy situation! Yours is a beautiful story, thanks for sharing :) I haven’t heard about living in a boat until today and this is inspiring !
Thank you, bheng! It definitely is an interesting lifestyle. The best part is, even after a rough day of work, I come home to the water. :-)
Bethany, good to hear an update! That’s an awesome lifestyle you have carved out and it sounds like you get to spend most of you time with your daughter. In the end, this is (obviously) what matters. Not what things we have around us, but WHO we have around us and a mutual respect/love for each other.
Thank you, John! It’s been a busy few months. :-) And yes, people are definitely more important than things.
I do like that you are very tolerant minimalist! As you say it can mean different things to different people (for me it is a wee cottage in Scotland). But I like your point that going through an extreme phase might just be part of the learning process.
A cottage in Scotland sounds idyllic, Freda! :-)
And the older I get (although I’m not very old, I realize!), the more I see that tolerance is the only way to go.
Thank you for allowing me to share, Francine. It was an honor to be featured on your blog once again. :-)
Minimalism means having only what I need and use in my home. There is still much that I can sell or give away. I keep a few things from my mom here and a few things from my husband’s mom who died 30 years ago. I still use my grandmother’s stainless steel utensils.
I have a small collection of signed Orrefors glass objects. I usually find them at thrift shops and rummage sales and have never paid more than $10. One of my daughters-in-law has shown an interest in a few of them so I may give them to her. For me, it’s the joy of the hunt. I just gave my daughter a pair of my good earrings I haven’t been wearing. I am giving some craft books to a cousin because she will enjoy them and she gave me some large houseplants. I have been giving house plants away all spring and summer and just keeping one or two of each kind.