Minimizing

I am on a three year journey to continue minimizing my possessions.  That is the time I've allotted for myself as my youngest finishes up high school and heads off to college.  Hard to believe that we are nearing that phase of life already, but it is rapidly approaching.

This pile has all been purged and combined into the one black binder

We continue to go through our things and select the items that are meaningful and useful.  The rest we are letting go.  Since we have the luxury of time right now we are placing some of these items up for sale while the rest is bagged up and headed off to be donated.  As we work we are also purging papers and organizing the paperwork for long term storage.  So far I have the important papers tucked away in a binder and one large expandable envelope.  I've pretty much let the rest go.

Once again I find myself amassing a collection of empty storage bins our in our garage.  We'll be using those to organize and eventually pack up items for moving, whether it is to a dorm room, an apartment or a new home down the road is yet to be determined.  So for now I am stacking them up until I know for sure.  I've made a tremendous amount of progress over the years and still have much to do.  Especially with what is now stored in our garage.  I'll be focusing a lot on clearing out that space this summer.  It is long past due and I'm beyond ready to get it done.

Minimizing our possessions as been a very freeing and liberating process, although it can also be rather emotional at times too.  Sentimental items are definitely the most difficult to part with, but I'm rather proud that I've been able to part with quite a bit of that as well.  Along with tackling the emotional side of minimizing I find the liberating part to be even more empowering and far more enjoyable.  I feel as though I can breathe better and I am much less stressed by having fewer material possessions.

The bonus to having less stuff has been that I have more time available and I work around the house a lot less.  Our evenings and weekends used evolve around chores, housework and managing our stuff.  We don't do that anymore.  It is much easier now to keep things clean, neat and tidy.  What we have left is now organized and functional.  We are better able to use our home and it is much more enjoyable to be in.  I spend far less time cleaning and maintaining our home and it stays that way.  I no longer feel panicked about company coming, or heaven forbid, unexpected guests arriving.  Our home is always company ready.

Any items we bring into the house are coming in with intention and thoughtfulness.  Thankfully the days of impulse shopping are long behind us, not that I was much of an impulse shopper, but I did have my moments on occasion.  Now I don't want to bring in anything into our home we don't need or won't use so a lot of thought goes into each purchase before it is made.  I like that.  Better decisions make for better actions.

Money saved is another result of minimizing.  We need less, we want less, therefore we buy less.  We have less therefore we spend less to take care of and maintain our things.  Because we aren't overwhelmed by the sheer volume of our stuff we are able to be more clear minded about how to take care of our possessions and since we have more time available we are able to do most of our maintenance ourselves rather than needing to hire it done.

Minimizing our possessions down to what is most important to us has been a very positive and life changing experience.  I have yet to meet anyone who has gone through the same experience tell me "Oh, I wish I hadn't done that."  Quite the opposite.  Like me, they wish they had started minimizing much sooner.

The key to successful minimizing is to maintain it and so far we have done that and we will continue to do so.  Nowadays I find myself looking around on a regular basis and thinking "What can I get rid of?" or "Do I need this anymore?"  I even find myself doing this at work.

What are your thoughts on minimizing?