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Posts tagged with: minimalism
Mar 1, 2018    |       6 comments

The Purge Begins

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When we moved out of our home into the 900 square foot apartment, we underwent a major purge. Then when we moved into the camper, we purged even more. Last year, our stuff fit into a small 6’x4′ cube for moving.  And honestly, other than buying furniture when we moved into our new rental house last April we haven’t really gotten back into stuff.

Furniture

We each got a new bed, we each have a inherited chest of drawers and we each got a new desk (Princess’ was given to us.) I purchased a used table and chairs from an estate sale ($200) and my uncle gave us a antique dishes holder (not really sure what to call it.)  That’s it. We don’t have any living room furniture at all.

Clothes

Princess and Gymnast continue to out grow clothes every season. (Although I think we are coming to the end of that with Princess.) With that being said, although they have all gotten new clothes over the 10 months we have been here, we have continued to donate items as new ones were brought in. (Remember when we did the 25 clothing items?)

The Purge

So what am I talking about when I say the purge begins…books. As you know, we have homeschooled for the past 9 years, since Princess was kindergarten age.  I have curriculum for every subject beginning with lower middle school through high school. Now that the twins are out of high school (Sea Cadet graduates this year,) and the younger two are in public school…the books are gathering dust.


I’m going to keep select high school items, but otherwise, it is time to say good-bye to that chapter of my life. Typing this, I think to myself, that I sound so flippant about it. But reality is, my stomach still clenches in dread at never homeschooling again. Reality is, Gymnast LOVES the social aspect so much, he would be miserable coming home again. And Princess is just one year from being able to enroll full time at the local community college. (When all was said and done, she had enough high school credits to go in as a sophomore in high school. We just have to wait for her to turn 15 to be able to dual enroll.)

Therefore, my goal over the next week is twofold:

  • Sort through my bookshelves and pull out all of those books that can go
  • Find a place to sell them (where I can make the most money and encounter the least hassle)

I don’t know how much money I will recover off this endeavor, but something about these mass purges calms my soul. We are definitely minimalist even today. Some of us (me) more than others, but in general, we have far less “stuff” then most anyone I know. And I love it.

I’ll keep you posted on how this purge translates into money!

Dec 26, 2017    |       3 comments

Minimalism to the extreme!!

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i recently came across this video online. It’s about a woman who didn’t want to continue paying exorbitant amounts for rent and/or mortgage, so she started researching tiny houses. That led her to start researching minimalism in general. And, finally, she had this crazy idea to move into a van! A VAN!!

check out the video here

The comments were pretty mixed. Some hailed her as a genius, but others described her as cheap and/or homeless (due to lack of physical address).

In the video, the woman says she had $40k of student loan debt, which she was able to pay off in one year thanks to not having a monthly rent or mortgage bill.

What do you think? How far would you go to become debt-free? What’s the wildesttt/wackiest thing you have done in the past? We used to DIY our baby wipes when our kids were still in diapers  That was a little “out there.”