Tag Archives: minimalism

Middletons’ Grocery Store

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Personal, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , , , ,

If you’re a minimalist, you might not like this post.

I’m going to advocate keeping a large supply of things you don’t need right now but may need in the future.

As I’ve mentioned before, problems with supply lines have caused certain products to be in short supply. We’ve seen this at our local grocery stores, where certain products have just disappeared.

Case in point: our son who lives with us has some digestive problems. One of the things that keep his system on an even keel is a daily small glass of prune juice. But we haven’t been able to find prune juice for several weeks now. I hate to think of how his system will react and how he will feel if we run out of prune juice.

Fortunately, we have quite a few bottles of prune juice because we’ve been squirreling it away for months. They aren’t the only things we’ve been stocking up on, either. We have two large 6’ tall shelves in our basement packed full of non-perishables including coffee, tea, and canned goods like meats, fish and vegetables. These are joined by large packages of paper goods nearby.

This makes an imposing sight; it looks like we have our own little grocery store downstairs. It certainly breaks all the decluttering and minimalist rules I’ve ever heard of. But in these times, it makes sense. Not only does it keep us from running out of things we can’t find, but it also stretches our dollars during a time of high inflation.

If this offends your minimalist sensibilities, I’m sorry. But I don’t want my son to go without his prune juice, or my husband to go without his coffee….or me to go without my tea!

Mockery of Minimalism?

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Simpler Living Tagged ,

Some of the commenters on this article say that this man who claims to have whittled down his worldly possessions to just 44 items and lived that way for a year is a scammer who mooches off of other people. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

What I do know is that no woman could do live with only 44 items for a year. We women have a wide range of needs. We need several different skirts and/or pairs of pants because our waist size changes depending on the time of the month. We aren’t going to live without our favorite bath or hair care products. We’re certainly not going to live with just a couple of outfits for a whole year.

You can take minimalism too far. Maybe he’s making a mockery of it. Or maybe he’s just an attention seeker. In any case, I’m thinking I couldn’t whittle down my list of necessities for a year to under 100, much less 44. I know a few people who couldn’t get their list under 1000. Ultimately, it’s kind of a silly exercise anyways.

The Christmas Gift Dilemma

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Personal, Simpler Living Tagged , , , ,

It’s that time of year again: decision-making time regarding Christmas gifts. When I was a child, opening gifts was high excitement. I want to recreate that for my grandkids.

But there are a few problems with this idea. Their folks aren’t looking for lots of new toys to trip over. One of my kids is a minimalist; two are moving next year. So they don’t want us to give their kids lots of stuff.

I understand, and if our grandkids were older, I’d have no problem giving them gift cards. But I really enjoy watching the littles open their gifts, and seeing how excited they get. I know from experience that there are only so many years that they show that excitement. Before long they reach the teen years, when you can’t even get them out of bed on Christmas morning.

So I’m torn. To complicate things, many popular toys are in short supply this year. Apparently an awful lot of them are sitting in shipping containers in the waters just west of California. I don’t want to buy my grandkids just any old thing so they can open something. I want it to be something they will love. I don’t want to clutter up my kids’ homes, but it’s more important to me to make my grandkids happy.

I suspect I’m not the only person grappling with this dilemma.

What Does a Minimalist Do in Self-Isolation?

By Claire Posted in Clutter Tagged , , ,

I recently saw this comment on a forum: “Being stuck inside for weeks like this makes me so glad I have such a huge yarn stash.”

And it got me thinking: if you’ve achieved a full minimalist state, with no excess clutter lying around anywhere, what are you doing to pass the time in self-isolation?

At first, I decided that someone with no clutter lying around is probably regretting their decision to pare down to almost nothing. But then I realized that just because your yarn stash is gone, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do:

  • You can read ebooks.
  • You can listen to music you’ve stored on your device.
  • You can exercise.
  • You can cook.
  • You can stay in contact with family and friends online.
  • You can watch movies (streamed, not DVDs).
  • And, of course, you can buy yarn online if you simply must knit or crochet to keep your sanity.

So all is not lost! On the other hand, if you’re awash in clutter, and have supplies for every craft project you ever wanted to make, you’d better dig that stuff out of your piles, dust it off and get cracking, because you’re never going to have this much free time again.