'Minimalism Changed Who I Am'
I spent this past Sunday at Camp FI Mid-Atlantic here in Virginia and it was a wonderful experience.
If you haven’t yet been to an in-person FI event, the two best ways to get started are to get updates from your ChooseFI Local Group and to attend a weekend Camp FI.
Justin Hall from ‘Living the FIgh Life’ gave an incredible presentation on minimalism that he titled ‘Minimalism Changed Who I Am’ (here’s the blog post it was based on), and I wanted to include my favorite part here in the newsletter.
Justin and his wife gave away 98% of their possessions (not a typo!) and he said:
Six tough questions helped me identify what I wanted to change in myself in relation to what I owned. When I took the time to reach my answer, I changed my relationship with each item, freeing myself to make clear-minded decisions whether to keep or let go.
Justin’s Six ‘Tough Questions’:
- Do my emotions connected to this item exist only because I possess it?
- Do my family and friends really care if I let go of this thing they gave me?
- If I let go of these excess clothes, do I care if people see me wear the same clothes on a frequent basis?
- Is this possession an investment or an expense?
- Can I borrow or rent this item instead of owning it?
- How do I handle new items that come to my doorstep?
In thinking through minimalism for myself, as I am well down this path in my own life, I have one additional concept I wanted to include that might make parting with ‘stuff’ a little easier:
Do NOT use ‘but what if I need this?’ as the litmus test for keeping something. You can always delude yourself into thinking that you need far more than you actually do.
I mentally keep a budget of around $500 for potentially repurchasing items in the future, in the freak chance that I do truly need something again.
While this might be seen as wasteful to some, I found that it was mentally liberating for me.
I strongly suspect I won’t need to repurchase nearly anything, and just reframing the conversation this way gave me the mental space to get rid of probably an additional 30% of everything I owned.
I didn’t have the scarcity mindset of holding onto things ‘just in case’ and I was able to donate and give away so much more this way.
My life is simpler without stuff filling every corner of living space and I simply don’t miss anything that I parted with.
Cut Down on Food Waste
I received this email from Brandi that I wanted to include verbatim here in the newsletter:
I wanted to share a resource that I love, which ties into the saving money on groceries win you shared last week. I use the website Supercook.com to use up everything in my pantry, fridge, and freezer. It helps cut my grocery bill (about $200 lower this month when I checked my budget in MyBudgetCoach) and use up that half bottle of BBQ sauce I needed once. It takes several minutes to set up and can get quite granular, but it's easy to maintain and add/remove items. I hope this helps you and others in the community! I don't think many know about the site, and it's been game-changing for us.