New to Loving Simple Living?  

Sign up to get simple tips sent right to your inbox and get Loving Simple Living the book for free!

Subscribe 

You are browsing the Blog for apartment - Loving Simple Living.

Simple Tip – Thankful Thinking

October 31, 2011 in My Simple Living

I wanted to write a few posts on thinking and outlook.  I have probably touched on it before, but it is so huge.  So much of life is formed in how we choose in our head to see it. 

So minimalism or simple living is having less stuff right?  Society tries very hard to make us feel like we don’t have enough stuff and tries to makes us want to buy more and more.   This isn’t evil, it makes tones of economic sense, I just don’t want to follow it.

The way to combat the feeling of needing more and more stuff is to really focus on being thankful for what I have.   What I have is a gift.  I didn’t deserve it but I want to manage and make the most of it.

I wanted to focus a bit on what I am thankful for.  Your list is probably a bit different, but I bet we have lots of the same things.  (sorry, kinda on a list kick from last Wed still)

I am thankful for:

    1. Life, all 31 years
    2. Health, not always the best, but sure could be far worse
    3. An amazing husband who is teaching me how to love and that I am valued
    4. Energetic, healthy, and smart kids
    5. Enough money in the bank to not worry about buying groceries
    6. Almost being out of debt (we have been working hard at paying off the Prius)
    7. The ability to read and the incredible amount of books available
    8. The chance and finances to stay home with my kids and home school them
    9. Modern medicine and the preventative health information to use it as little as possible
    10. Great friends
    11. Caffeine free coffee (I can’t handle the caffeine, wigs me out, but I love the taste)
    12. Dark chocolate
    13. Olives… ok, I should probably just put great food or this list could really get long
    14. Sunny days, and hot summer days, and a south facing apartment
    15. Mostly consistent work since we became self-employed over 4 years ago
    16. A God who loves and has saved me
    17. Our minimalism journey which makes it much easier to clean, find things and/or move
    18. Awesome garage sales and Craigslist to both sell what we don’t need anymore and get things we do
    19. Blogging, the fun people I have gotten to know through it, and the challenging process of learning how to do it
    20. Sleep…. my favorite hobby
    21. Facebook and the fact that I have caught up with almost everyone I ever knew in the last few years… and the ability to take my time back and not spend near as much time on it as I have been.
    22. Brown paper packages and whiskers on kittens
    23. British Comedy
    24. Early bedtimes and quiet evenings
    25. …..my need to finish off a list with a nice round number like 25.

What does your list look like?  I dare you to make on–just making one makes the day feel better.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
7 Comments »

Simple Tip-Spread The Fancy House Around

October 24, 2011 in My Simple Living

 

Here is Ian playing at the park by our apartment

I would like to think I live big.  I also live small.

Let me explain.  Within my grasp of walking or driving I have access to a nice pool, several parks, shops, a great library and even a world class zoo.   The great thing is that I don’t have to pay to maintain any of it.  (The small membership fee for the zoo is nothing compared to what we get) 

Our living is much bigger, smaller:

First off the library.  Sure we used our local branch on the edge of town, but we also housed several hundred books in the house.  Our whole family are readers (now even my 4 year old, I am so proud).   They usually didn’t cost much, especially the kids books because we got them at garage sale or gifts.  What they did cost was space and clean up time.  The kids had books all over their rooms and playroom all the time!  My son would also come into my room and clean off my book shelf.  We got rid of over 90% of them.  As a family we have access to 160 books at a time from the library, and it is only a mile away.  Sure, we still have piles at the house, but they are smaller piles and they are different books every week.

 That stack of books next to Lily.. that is just her getting started :)

Here is Ian showing me what books he wants to look for.

Second the pool.  I really wanted to make sure my kids learned to swim a few year ago, and they need practice a well as swim lessons so we got a 15′ above ground pool for the back yard.  We spent hours trying to get that thing to work.  Our first problem was that the yard had a gradual slope so we went at it with shovels.  We ended up with a hole in the yard and it was still not flat.  Second, I hated messing with chemicals.  Third, we couldn’t keep the leaves out of it.  Fourth, it was cold…. you get the idea.  Now we have an awesome warm, clean, indoor pool and hot tub at our apartment without even a gym membership cost.  Even if we needed to pay a gym membership it would be less money and stress than all that maintenance.

Just in the last week he has been practicing without his life jacket.  He can’t really touch that well, even in the shallow end.  He is a nut though.  He has been practicing with the jacket so well that when we took it off he could swim about 10 feet on his own.

Lily is a fish, she spends more time under the water than above it.

Third the parks.   We had a gym set in the back yard for the kids… we got it for free and we gave it away for free… it wasn’t that great.  Now we have a few parks within walking distance and some really good ones just a short drive away.  The great part for the kids is that they even come with playmates most days.

Lily at the park

Forth, we are much closer now to the zoo and stores which saves time and gas.

I thought this looked cute.  Looks like he is trying to get the tiger to bite his ear, but he is probably just trying to hide behind it as soon as daddy pulled out the camera.

Both kids love bounce houses.  This one was set up at the zoo when we went.

Fifth the yard care.  With the apartment I have no yard maintainance …except throwing out the dead plants off my porch (my thumb isn’t as green as I want it to be). 

When I look at this list it and remember all the work we did it makes me tired…. it represents so much time and work I put into bringing the world to us when it wasn’t all that far away. 

Many people have asked me how we can manage to live in such a small place, and this is really the reason.  In our bigger ‘real’ house we still had the same access, but we didn’t go out and take advantage of it as much.  Now when we do go play, or sit down and read, or swim it is way easier and much better.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
22 Comments »

Apartment Update

October 10, 2011 in My Simple Living

Hey, wanted to do an update on how our apartment simplified living is going.  If this is the first time you are stopping by the website allow me to fill you in.  This spring we sold most everything, rented out our house, and moved into a 2 bedroom apartment because we wanted to live simple (or simpler).  The process of getting rid of stuff has continued all summer as well so now we have no trouble at all fitting into our small space. 

What I have learned in the last few months living in an apartment:

  1. There is no hidden rooms (to stash stuff or put of cleaning)…. when guests come over they can see into almost every room stepping a few feet from the entry way in each direction. 
  2. Every room has to be kid friendly… including my bedroom… the kids (and their friends) get into everything that isn’t on the top shelf of my closet.  Our previous house had several rooms the kids wouldn’t go into.
  3. My children are loud :)
  4. I haven’t missed having a yard or garden to take care of once this summer.
  5. It takes about a half an hour to clean, but I still procrastinate the job.
  6. I have to stop buying food in bulk.
  7. As crazy as the idea was, and as crazy as I felt selling and moving, I am so glad we had the guts to do it.

Stealing my husband’s picture, we are on our simplicity path.  This is a road we drove in Kings Canyon, CA this summer.  Not a lot of people travel this road and it is impossible with a large vehicle (a.k.a a lot of stuff).  Seems crazy and dangerous, but it is beautiful.  It curves around into the unknown, but we are traveling as a family and excited about the adventure ahead.  It was at the end of this road that we found a waterfall to play in and it was one of the highlights of our whole trip. 

It also represents the fact that we still have a long way to go.  The easy part was the tangible, the material.  The hard part is simplifying my life and head and really learning to trust and follow God instead of society, others, or my own ideas. 

I wanted to also share a tip I have figured out with ‘simple’ storage.  My husband made me this bed frame a couple of years ago because I wanted to have the sides painted to match the colors of the room.  I never used the space.  Now however, these few 1 x 8′s store over 3 large tubs full of our seasonal cloths (and the cloths I have bought ahead for the kids).   As you can see, I am not really neat…. I should have folded all the cloths, but I didn’t.  They are sorted by person, one row for each ofthe 4 of us and one extra row for snow gear. 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
4 Comments »

The Bad Side of Bulk

September 21, 2011 in Minimalist Tips

This is a crazy post for me to write.  A year ago, this post would have sounded very different so, I guess, this area really shows how my thinking has changed.  I have learned that simple living and simple homemaking often doesn’t including buying in bulk.

I used to love bulk.  I have never been a hoarder of stuff after I have used it (like kids cloths or craft projects) but I was a big hoarder on bulk items.  Before we moved to our apartment this spring I had our house packed with all kinds of things I found in bulk or on sale.  We had a year or more supply of stuff from toiletries, to food, to kids cloths (these purchased several years in advance at garage sales).  My thriftiness had me buying everything in advance when I could find it.  I always shopped through all the clearance sections and found great deals. 

While downsizing this spring I ran into the problem of trying to figure out what to do with our years supply of so many things.  I found myself selling lots of never touched toiletries and boxes of laundry soap, and donating lots of cloths that they kids wouldn’t have grown into for years.  Even now, lots of stuff that we have in our apartment now is left over bulk that I kept that we will hopefully use up in the next year.   

What I am coming to realize is that bulk really isn’t cheaper for two main reasons:

First, I am not sure I will really need it.  Often I have ended up with more cloths purchased ahead of time than my kids even need for a size and season.  I have gotten lots of shampoo that I then decide I don’t like as well as I thought I did.  We get sick of a food and there is still lots left in the cupboard. 

Second, I am paying for temperature controlled storage for my bulk.  It might be cheaper to buy TP for a year at a time on sale, but then I need to have a house big enough to have a place to store it.  Most of my basement and bathroom cupboards were full of different bulk products.   Now I don’t have the space to keep all these products, but I am also paying much less living expenses and utilities.  Having a chest freezer was nice in the house and it was always full, but I am not sure that it saved what we paid for in electricity to run it.  Honestly, the stuff purchased in bulk was cheaper, but was it really cheap enough to make up for the costs.     

Beyond these there is the hassle of having to sort through stuff and keep it organized. 

Probably most people aren’t near as crazy as me.   My excuse was that hoarding for the future was much smarter than hoarding other useless items.  It has just been a revelation, or a change in the way I am thinking, to realize that this really wasn’t saving me money and that living simply, buying only a few things in bulk or ahead is really, surprisingly cheaper…. and way easier.

If we need to have it all, than couponing or shopping all over town might make it cheaper… but maybe we don’t need it all.

Less hassle, more time.  Less stuff, more money.   Simple life, more freedom.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments »

Simplify-Refuse To Buy Junk

September 15, 2011 in Minimalist Tips

This has been a habit that I have learned to break while living in our small apartment space.  Stop buying junk! 

It isn’t easy.  The reality is that society with all the brains and money it can muster are trying to get us to buy junk. Add to that,  the perceived cure to our current economic crisis would be people consuming and buying more.  

However, it is necessary.  To live a simplified life and a sustainable minimalistic life one has to mastering this concept.  Stop buying junk! 

The conspiracy is all interconnected.  Bigger houses with bigger closets and more cabinets, bigger shopping carts and more trunk space in cars.   All the space begs to be filled.  They are easy to get filled with junk because:

  1. We can’t wait to buy a quality product so we have created a market for the cheapest, thinnest, flimsiest things we can find to give the look of quality.  Look at most clothing…..
  2. Planned obsolesence which means that companies make a science out of how long something has to hold together or work for us to still buy it, then makes sure it breaks down beyond repair so we have to replace it again.  This concept makes me angry!  There is a science for making sure things break down and are hard to repair.  Sound like most appliances?

Society creates the need for the illusion of success while marketing, store layout, scents, music etc make sure we buy all we can.  Then once we have all the stuff the need is always there to replace  items because they wear out, break, look used and flimsy all after just a short time.  Increase stuff, replace stuff, increase our stuff, replace what breaks  …. then we have a life full of worn out junk filling our houses and lives.  

Stop the junk!  It isn’t about just getting rid of stuff as it gets used and worn out or we get tired of it, if it was only that we would have a part-time job sorting and getting rid of stuff.  The ideal with minimalism and simple living is that we go through, sort, get rid of stuff once.  (it may take several times but each time it should be a much smaller pile.  From 100% quantity to 60% to 30% to 20% etc… the piles should be drastically smaller not growing)  Less junk, don’t buy stuff that needs replaced, less junk, keep  quality that doesn’t need maintained….. and we have our time and money back.  

The junk caused by our ’consumer society on crack’ cheats us of:

  1. Time-Purchasing, picking up, cleaning, maintaining, storing, sorting, storing, sorting, storing, trying to fix, giving away….. you get the idea.       
  2. Money-Yeah junk is usually the cheap stuff.  It is the stuff that turns our grocery shopping trip for a few things into a cart load.  Have you heard the example of compounding interest of a Starbucks coffee (or not having a Starbucks coffee in the example) turning into a fortune at the end of life?  That is real money.  This is the real money that junk is stealing from us every day.
  3. Our Home and very existance-Um… the idea of making and shipping piles of junk that end up in landfills, sometimes within months, is bad for the earth…. really bad….. just saying.

I found this website last winter and I love this woman.  I think she should be president.  Vote for  Annie Leonard!  She has some great movies on stuff that are great for all ages.  Great educational material for kids.  Check it out at www.storyofstuff.com

But what if our economy is hanging on this junk thread.  What would happen if we just stopped buying junk?  If we stood up and decided we wouldn’t take the poor quality, the manipulation, and the environmental burden any more? Would it ruin the economy completely? 

I think it would definitely be a bit crazy for business for a while, but it isn’t that we want less.  We aren’t asking for less, we are asking for more in smaller packages.  People still have time and money to earn and spend.  What if we demanded a quality that required much more time and work.   People would still have jobs making these things even though it would take lots more time and design.  These quality items would be worth the extra money and would hold up to wear.  Also, if we weren’t so quick to buy junk from all over the world, maybe we could really develop and treasure ‘Made In America’ goods and keep lots more of the money in our country.   They would take less space, but be much more efficient allowing us to free up our time and space.  I believe our economy could recover, or even get better.  What would change is the environmental burden and the time wasted.  With fewer things being made and lasting longer, waste and transportation pollutions could drastically drop.   We wouldn’t need to spend all our free time buying, fixing, sorting, hunting for, storing… etc.

So pick your reason:

  1. Time
  2. Money
  3. Environment
  4. Principle
  5. Appreciation of finer things

…. and STOP buying junk!

Note: I am not a Wal-Mart hater.  I don’t really like the place, but I end up there now and then.  Tonight I had to stop for a large envelope.  … it is just that most of the place is filled with junk and it makes a great example.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments »