extreme minimalism

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Started 1 year ago by remy
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remy
Member

So as a few of you know, I'm attempting to cut down to 500 items. This includes books, kitchen equipment... basically everything. (There's a few exceptions, like a bag of pens is two items, not 40.) I don't know that I'll make it that low, but I've definitely seen a change in my attitude towards stuff given the drastic decisions I've had to make.

Since I currently have about three hundred spots open, and I still need to add in clothing and the rest of my books, I look at everything with a much more discerning eye. It's not just a matter of whether I need/could use the item, but whether or not that particular item is really necessary. If I have 7 blankets, but could buy a really decent comforter that does the job just as well, which is better to have? For me, having less is more effective and less stressful. Over time I'm starting to see which things I really enjoy and which things I really don't need anymore.

I was wondering if anyone else is cutting back drastically, or has done so? Even if it isn't to a certain number of items. I've noticed that because I'm cutting out so much, I'm having a major emotional reaction to having STUFF that I might not have felt had I not been so drastic. Thoughts?

Posted 1 year ago #
SunshineR
Member

Hi, Remy. While I haven't cut back as drastically, I think that it's natural to experience a flood of emotions connected with loss. My special items are books, recipes, music...and I don't know what I'd do if I had to quickly or seriously downsize those items.

Imo, you are taking your time and are looking ahead to the future by choosing to downsize gradually. Maybe you are feeling sentimental, or feeling like you're losing money by getting rid of purchases; also, wondering what the future will be like with less, but enough. Kind of like, being a minimal traveler in a hotel room, missing what is at home and being glad to return to familiar surroundings. Maybe, try slowing down a little with your project, make sure to include some mementoes and luxuries in your keeper items.

Posted 1 year ago #
Mimi
Member

i have downsized to ~1/3 of my stuff. but for me, counting my stuff is not essential. i don´t want to limit my stuff to a special number, i trust in my feelings. if it feels good to give away stuff, it´s good. if i feel unsure or overwhelmed, i stop.
why do you specify a number of 500 items? maybe it´s the goal of not having more than 500 things that forces decisions that you don´t want to/ can´t do yet and that leads to emotional reactions. i´d say: take your time, take a rest and don´t be that drastic. imho, uncluttering should lead to positive emotional reactions.

Posted 1 year ago #
ninakk
Member

I don't see myself ever going that minimal, but can see why someone would choose it and think it's very admirable. I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts both during the process and afterwards!

I think like Mimi on this one. Once I don't feel suffocated at home I'll stop. I know that it will come in waves though, and once the need to declutter washes over me again, I will start up another outbox for donations.

I've liked having an outbox around for longer times. In it go all those things that I'm still not completely ready to part with. If I don't give them another thought, out they go, but it's okay to take something back too. There aren't that many items I'm uncertain about, but when I am I know not to push myself too much or I might make the wrong decision. Patience is good.

Posted 1 year ago #
ximun
Member

Just like you I'm a student and I've been trying to follow the minimalist path. I still live with my parents (don't know about you) and that's definitely an obstacle to uncluttering and reducing the amount of things in the house. Becoming a minimalist has to be done while living on your own imo.

I'm dreaming of leading a minimalist lifestyle but currently there's too much clutter around me. I'm trying to sell books, etc. without much success and I simply don't know how to get rid of most of my possessions. I don't need much to function; laptop, workout clothes, ballroom outfit to name a few and by getting rid of the useless stuff I would probably be down to less than a hundred things.

For me, 500 things definitely doesn't qualify as 'extreme minimalism' but it's an enormous step in the right direction. I'm rooting for you!

Posted 1 year ago #
susanintexas
Member

A friend of mine has led a bit of a chaotic but fulfilling life over the past 10-12 years. She's moved at least 7 or 8 times that I can remember in that time; housing was often a part of her job. Sometimes the places were furnished, or partially so. Sometime it was a whole house, and now it it a very nice and very small efficiency apartment in a great downtown location. Throughout this entire process she has been paring down her stuff. We've discussed this, and her attitude is "nimble." She won't be held back from any opportunity or adventure because of her stuff. It can be moved easily, or fit into a storage locker -- even kept in someone's garage. I'm not at this stage in my life now -- I was when I was in my 20s. And I might get there again.

Posted 1 year ago #
Anita
Member

While I can't say I aspire to minimalism in any way, my major downsize was done when my boyfriend and I moved in together. Just by the nature of our lifestyles and hobbies, we each have quite a lot of stuff -- he has a piano, which I don't play. I have to have a desk to work at whereas he doesn't. We both have photography equipment, and sports equipment, and books, and DVD collections, and a load of other things that fit just fine in our respective bachelor apartments, but would take at least a 2-bedroom apartment to fit in comfortably altogether. However, I didn't want a big apartment (too much to keep clean), nor could we really afford one; we got a largish 1-bedroom instead and had to make it work. So we did, first by deciding what was most important for us to keep and making room for it, and then by cutting down on the rest. The piano stayed, as did the desk. The library and DVD collections got drastically cut down. My wardrobe suffered. His wardrobe improved, since he's no longer wearing his stretched out, oversized, faded T-shirts he was keeping just because he had the room. And so on.

Our goal, however, was never to see how much less we could live with, or to reduce our posessions to a specific number, but to reduce enough of them for us to live comfortably in our new place, with the things that are important to us. I didn't have any major emotional turmoils throughout this process, because once I had decided what was important for me to keep, I felt perfectly at ease getting rid of the rest. But I can see how decluttering for a more arbitrary reason (i.e. decluttering for its own sake, not for the sake of your comfort) can lead to some emotional hardship.

My only suggestion is to assess things based on the value they have in your life, not on the number of items they represent. But then again, I'm not a minimalist.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

anita said: "My only suggestion is to assess things based on the value they have in your life, not on the number of items they represent".
i completely agree.

i see a lot of this 100 things or 300 things or 500 things online and lists of possessions and i do not think that a mere number is what minimalism is about.
also, i notice a lot of these minimalists are on the road constantly.
really, anyone can live minimally out of one backpack, if they have other people providing the cooking equipment, the bed, the linen, the towels, the coffee machine, the electricity and wifi connections so they can blog about how they own the clothes they are standing up in and an iphone and that's all!

i don't want to sleep in a sleeping bag on a yoga mat on the floor, with my spare t-shirt as a pillow.
i just know that that arrangement won't last for most people who have choices.
for me it is much more minimal to buy a bed that i will use for the rest of life, and a latex mattress that will last for thirty years, and really good linen that will last for decades.

i mean, who decided that 100 things or any number really, was the definition of minimalism?
i've got 20 irish linen tea towels. i sound like a horrible failure of a minimalist!
but i got those tea towels 15 years ago. 12 of them have never been used. the other eight have been used constantly/daily and look like new. one has a tiny darn. i am 44 and probably will not ever need to buy another tea towel in my whole life.
i could eat out three times a day and not require tea towels at all.
i could exchange my 20 tea towels for ONE dishwasher....but that doesn't feel at all minimalist to me.

i think it is vital to consider one's own goals and not get drawn into other people's self-challenges.
someone else's vision of a perfect life may not gel with your ideas at all.

Posted 1 year ago #
Patch
Member

My ultimate goal is "everything I own in one suitcase," but as much as I've sold, donated, or recycled already, I'm still nowhere near minimalism.

I still have too much stuff that I enjoy, but could definitely live without and most likely would never replace if fire or flood claimed them.

Some days I'm even going two steps backward for every step forward.

I could pretty easily list just a handful of things including clothes that would fit into my "keep one suitcase of stuff" rule, but like someone already said even finding charities that aren't already over-loaded with donations is not that easy.

Posted 1 year ago #
Lise
Member

@ bandicoot - that was beautiful. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

patch....what are you going to do for a bed? a fridge? something to cook on or cook with?
even the traditionally nomadic people of the world travel with more than a suitcase and they are quite minimalistic.
i am not challenging you...i just want to understand your parameters.

Posted 1 year ago #
JuliaJayne
Member

Well said, bandicoot.

Posted 1 year ago #
ximun
Member

The way I see it, you can have your possessions fit in a suitcase/backpack and live in furnished apartments and such. This way you're living comfortably without losing the freedom of packing your stuff and moving to another location on a whim.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

ximun, this is true.
but this lifestyle seems more like out-sourcing your ownership of stuff, than true minimalism.
you are still using a bed, table, chairs, all the detritus of life etc....it's just that you don't personally own it yourself.
so, is the renter more of a minimalist than the owner? (i don't believe so).

Posted 1 year ago #
ninakk
Member

outsourcing responsibility. not my dream. i also like the aesthetic aspect of my home too much to outsource that :) furnished apartments mean that someone else has to own two homes - one for tenant one for self - but this is highly unlikely outside of western countries. minimalism becomes luxury?

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

and why is the ability to pack up and move such a trendy goal at the moment?
i see it all over the blogosphere.
it seems like the ULTIMATE goal to a lot of people.
what about the ability to live simply, put down roots, nurture/improve some land, have a sense of local community, build a business....are they not worthy goals also?
i don't want to move to another location on a whim.
i want to see the rainforest i planted grow up.
i want to have friends over for dinner regularly and watch their children grow up.
i want to keep on manufacturing my product that brings a lot of people a little joy every day.
i want my life, in this house, to feel like a work of art.
sure, i want to get away a lot as well....i travelled for over four months last year.
but i want something meaningful to come home to at the end of the day.
and if you ask me, we are going to be seeing this same need arise in loads of these digital nomads and location-independent people in the next few years.
it's ok and it's great fun for a while. but then what?

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

ninakk, yes.
and i have never seen a furnished rental apartment with top quality stuff in it.
so you know that crap is going to get broken sooner rather than later. and replaced over and over.
i prefer buying one well-made thing that will last me for a lifetime, than being part of an endless cycle of rubbish.

and yes, the aesthetics of it all.
when i make a salad for dinner, i enjoy the entire process....a decent knife that i have owned for almost thirty years and just sharpened, slicing through a tomato i grew myself, into a wooden chopping board that is old and smooth with use.
it goes into a porcelain bowl and is eaten with a fork that was my husband's aunt's wedding silver.
this is a very simple thing that gives me a great deal of pleasure. it is life as art.

hacking at a supermarket tomato with a cheapie knife, on a thin plastic chopping board, and scarfing it up out of a cheap chipped bowl with a plastic spork......it gives me indigestion just thinking about it.
the two experiences simply don't compare.
and there is hardly anything simpler or more minimalist than cutting up a tomato and eating it.

Posted 1 year ago #
remy
Member

I agree with you bandicoot. I never plan on being able to live in a backpack, although my ultimate goal is to make moving as easy as I can.

I didn't mean to imply that I'm having a negative emotional reaction, just a strong reaction from thinking that I needed so much stuff to really seeing what I use on a daily basis. It's the first time I've been aware of my possessions in any real way, and I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I am.

I specified 500 because I had read a lot of the 100-thing blogs, and was inspired, but also noticed they don't count things like furniture, books, and other things. I decided an item to be "something I will need to deal with when moving" and worked from there. It's been great so far, although something I don't recommend unless there's a motivation for it (like moving across the country in a year!)

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

Bnadicoot, I think a lot of people are looking at flexibility as their only option to avoid being stuck in a place where it's impossible to get a job.

Also I suspect the average age of minimalist bloggers is "not very old". Everything I owned fit into the trunk of my car for years in my '20s (except the stuff at my mom's, shhh!). Now I'm the one with stability, storing stuff for my folks to have back when they're done living in their RV.

Posted 1 year ago #
Patch
Member

"patch....what are you going to do for a bed? a fridge? something to cook on or cook with?"

Being single, I could easily live in a small camper or motorhome of my own with all of my needs and probably a good many of the creature comforts if I wanted, but also be able to move on a moment's notice to wherever the need and/or the opportunity arises. But that's just one option.

I'm no twenty-something...I'm in my late forties, and have in fact spent my entire adult life to date owning a house full of furniture and stuff, collecting all this crap because the "retail therapy" was fun. At the time.

Now, however, all it has gotten me is being stuck in one place, miserable, and having to work at a job I don't particularly enjoy, just because it pays enough to pay for maintaining a mortgage (or pay someone else's) and a lifestyle I don't particularly enjoy either.

Trust me, I think the current crop of nomads who crash on others' couches are annoying too, that's why if I ever do get to the nomadic minimalist stage of life, it will be as a self-sufficient one.

Rather than spend my money acquiring more Stuff, I could use it to meet my own basic needs as well as supporting others through buying or renting what services they offer. For instance, I would be healthier eating only a raw vegan diet (no cooking) and either growing my own produce or supporting that from local farmers. With a local Y or gym membership I could get my daily workout and shower (in that order). With a good pillow and blanket and maybe my yoga mat, I could sit and sleep on a pallet on the floor (people all over the world do so), writing or playing my musical instrument or reading my Bible. I could spend my days working outdoors in physical jobs, supporting the causes I believe in rather than working in an office for someone else's goals and values. Even if I move from place to place living in hotels, yes, technically I'm renting "someone else's" bed, but also I'm providing THEM a livelihood, at least in part.

Yes, it's a simplistic life to have as a goal, perhaps even overly so, but then again few if any people ever went to their death beds wishing they'd spent more time at the office, or owned more Stuff.

I can't believe I'm having to explain my journey here but there it is. I thought uncluttering was supposed to lead each of us down our own paths, no matter how weird it sounds to others?

Posted 1 year ago #

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