Amy and I spent the weekend in New York City visiting some friends and family. It has been about ten years since I’ve visited the city and a quite a lot has changed since then. From the moment we landed at LaGuardia, the entire environment felt rushed and bustling. Even in a downpour, there were people absolutely everywhere, going who knows where. The trip was fun, and provided some valuable new perspectives on our minimalism journey.
[Read more…] about The New York City HustleSearch Results for: one small change
How Constant Distractions Create Big Stress
A few years ago I crossed paths with a personal finance concept called the Latte Factor and recently, I’ve drawn some parallels between it and my experience with constant distractions.
The general idea behind the Latte Factor is that frequent small purchases over 20 or more years end up being a very large amount of money. Apply some standard potential investment returns on that money, and that amount gets even larger. You can play with some numbers at the link above to learn more about that.
It’s quite alarming to see how much money those small purchases could have added up to had we spent it on investments instead of coffee or whatever else. While I do see buying coffee as a life enhancement for several reasons, I can see the author’s point. We often trade these frequent four and five dollar purchases for what could be major progress towards financial independence.
[Read more…] about How Constant Distractions Create Big StressGet Rid of These 5 Things To Reduce Household Clutter
We all know that feeling.
Looking around the house for ways to make things less cluttered and identify areas that can be tidied up. More often than not, we find a few things here and there that can go into the donation pile but it doesn’t always make a large impact.
Seeing positive results from getting rid of things is always satisfying, but how can we expedite the process to be more impactful and see results sooner? Sometimes it just comes down to forcing ourselves to deal with the stuff immediately.
Here are five things you can get rid of that will help reduce clutter in your home:
[Read more…] about Get Rid of These 5 Things To Reduce Household ClutterHow I Learned To Enjoy Doing (Minimalist) Laundry
I used to hate doing laundry because it took a ton of time and energy to do load after load.
Sorting, washing, drying, sorting, folding, putting away. It was made worse by the fact that I would never do laundry by choice—only out of necessity when I ran out of clean underwear. I had so many clothing options that I didn’t have to do laundry for weeks, or sometimes up to a month or more.
I’d always wear the clothing I most enjoyed first until they disappeared into the pile of dirty clothes and I’d move on to other clothing I liked less and less. Then at the last possible moment, lacking any reasonable remaining clothing options, I was left with a massive multi-load laundry project to tackle.
How I learned to enjoy doing laundry wasn’t by figuring out a more efficient way; it was by doing less.
[Read more…] about How I Learned To Enjoy Doing (Minimalist) LaundryThe Minimalism Effect: Three Benefits to Getting Rid of Stuff
Moving towards minimalism and getting rid of many of possessions might seem pretty overwhelming, but keep in mind that we don’t have to do it all at once.
Even small improvements can be very powerful.
Remember, it’s up to you to decide what minimalism means in your life. Although we’ve been working on this since late November, it still feels like we’re right in the middle of it all. There are still areas of the house to improve, areas that still feel ‘heavy’ with things.
Although we’re not done, the minimalism effect from what we have accomplished is profound.
[Read more…] about The Minimalism Effect: Three Benefits to Getting Rid of StuffNew Year’s Resolutions That Stick
At the beginning of each new year most of us make resolutions that we believe will improve our lives and lead us to become better human beings. It’s a fresh start, a brand new year with infinite possibilities. It’s finally our chance to step up to the plate and get things done without the baggage of the previous 364 days weighing us down. The problem is, out of the ~60% of Americans that usually make new year’s resolutions, only 8% are successful in achieving them. This is a pretty depressing statistic, but here’s the flip side: People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t.
[Read more…] about New Year’s Resolutions That Stick