Becoming Minimalist

I am always getting "caught up" with my blog that I never get to write about the "now"! So I will catch up later and discuss what I am doing in my life recently.

As some of you know I am a HUGE Dave Ramsey fan! We even gave books to friends and family of the Total Money Makeover to friends/family for Christmas last year as their gift! ...It was not received well! lol! But honestly we just believe in the system, it makes sense and works for us. We have just begun to make a dent in our debt and we can already see the blessings it is bringing to our lives.

We are on the SAME financial page, which honestly helps us be on the same page in just about all aspects of our life! It has helped our communication, my our honesty, trust, and has shown us how to reach and achieve the same goals. I encourage EVERYONE to get on the plan if they are not already and I swear it will start feeling good to not be a slave and to feel some financial freedom. Proverbs 22:7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

On top of becoming debt free and eventually building wealth, we I am working on becoming a minimalist.

Now this is not in my natural nature. I have learned a couple of things about myself in both of these processes.
1) I like to spend money and buy new things.
2) I am an organized hoarder.

I keep things just because it was free and I MAY use it someday! RIDICULOUS!! Now that I can see how ridiculous this is I am working on decluttering my home! Not just reorganizing and packing things away but actually getting it OUT for good!

My habits are not going to change over night so YES I do still have things I have packed and put away, but I am making "large" baby steps, more like adolescent steps, on dejunking my house! I came across this idea of becoming a minimalist from Google searching "How many toys should a kid own?" this is the greatest website that came up (http://www.becomingminimalist.com/)

How many of you are CONSTANTLY picking up toys and getting frustrated by the dumping of toys to get the one thing on the bottom or to actually play in the bin the toys were in? Well I am sooo sick of it!... I tried the sorting, it would end up still all in one place. I tried the pile everything in one bin, it would just get dumped even more often in the day. And I even tried the rotation of toys, where some are packed away and others are out. Nothing worked very well... Bottom line we own too many toys! They aren't blessing my life or my children's... that is the number one thing to remember when becoming a minimalist. If it isn't adding value to your life than get rid of it!

I am in the process of selling things and taking loads to the DI. I even made Lenore go through her toys and get rid of HALF her things! I was so proud of her because out of all the children, she actually plays with all of her toys the most. She loves and cares for each of them. It was hard to watch her pick and say goodbye to somethings that I pictured her playing with, but it was also such a wonderful thing to see her be so willing and obedient. I held up 2 toys at a time and had her pick between the two, one would go in the keep basket and the other would go in the DI/sell basket. I just picked for the boys, because they don't play like Lenore does, so I only kept their most played with things and I don't even think they have noticed.

I still feel overwhelmed with what I need to get to and how much stuff I own, but the things that I have gotten rid of has made a significant difference in that space.

I am working on clothing right now! I spend so much energy, stress, and anxiety over laundry. I DO NOT like laundry! I will even go as far to say I HATE it! It is never ending and I do not enjoy my life by being stressed and overwhelmed with laundry all the time.

So many times we as a society dress to impress other people, which leads us to have so many clothes to not over wear the same thing again and again in fear someone will see us in the same outfit in the same week! Heaven forbid! Well I no longer care! Not that I was one to ever really care that much anyway. When you have so many clothes and none of them are clean because you don't even know where to begin because there are just to many so you are wearing this!! IN PUBLIC!

You aint impressing NOBODY! So I am in the process of trying to keep roughly 6 outfits a person and 3 church outfits (a few more for Hannah and Lenore because let's be honest girl clothes are just so cute!). But everything else is gone!

I obviously am holding on to a few pjs, socks and underwear as well, but once it doesn't fit or I buy a new set the ond ones are out! I actually was buying my kids new pajamas because their old ones got to small, but I wasn't getting rid of the old ones, I was actually still putting them on my kids and not caring that they were small and looked ridiculous because I was the only one going to see them! Well if they are still good enough to wear than I do not need more! So my new rule is I have to be willing to get rid of old clothes before I buy anything new.

All of this is still a work in progress but I thought I would share in case anyone else was struggling with these things yourself and needed a place to start!