Barter Best For Living Simply

In the 1800s, the barter, pledge and sharing networks formed the backbone of the economy of many small communities in North America. These networks often were based on family connections, but also found strong support in community development. Today, particularly in the USA, such cooperatives are viewed, at best, as socialistic, and at worst, communistic. It is unfortunate that we allow the label to define the concept, and, in turn, allow great ideas to be discarded because we chose to pigeonhole them.

Barter networks have regained some of their former popularity in restricted circles, and cooperatives, in general, have found niche appeal. Their implementation, though, could have been employed effectively to mitigate the impact of the 2008 economic downturn. Sharing networks have become the domain of eco-freaks and urban environmentalists, who focus on community-owned bicycles and other transportation assets. Unfortunately, our evolved innate distrust of those that we do not know, and our fear of losing material assets have led us to reject the concept of sharing and pledging as too Utopian to work.

Barter systems, today, most commonly rely upon the business members to provide most of the goods and services that are traded or banked to keep the network functioning. While many programs have city, country or world-wide membership, an effective local barter network can be developed with ease. Think of the old country doctor, as an example. Often, the fee for his work was paid in livestock or food. Travelling repair handymen could count on room and board in exchange for a day's work. Neither of these would be considered retailers or manufacturing businesses.

I belonged, for several years, to a local barter network with international reach, through its affiliate program. I could trade off services that I provided for restaurant meals, business services, auto repairs and even travel. While it proved to be quite valuable for me, it had limitations. Only those with a marketable asset could participate. Yet, I often bought goods privately, and found that there was no capacity for one-on-one, personal trading and banking. There was no structural reason for this; merely a philosophical one.

While working as a rural business development specialist, I structured a community-driven barter system that enabled every member of that community to participate. When I concluded my work with the community, however, no one was willing to take on the task of maintaining interaction lists between members. Yet, as the network would grow, it would be capable of providing an income stream for whoever chose to operate the system.

Barter networks require one essential ingredient, aside from the capacity to input something of value to the group that can be traded or banked. Each member must be willing to input a reasonable value of goods or services, to be banked, thus eliminating the "trust me, I'm good for it" factor. That good faith gesture often hampers the growth of barter networks, yet should be viewed as its strength, because the input of something when joining means that there is a liquid asset to the operation, creating value. In the alternative, barter networks require small cash inputs and contractual indebtedness to ensure viability.

Many look at barter systems skeptically, assuming that they must be somehow illegal. In fact, they are not only legal, but are recognized by the tax systems of all major democratic countries. That, sadly, means that the value of goods traded is taxable. There are some minor concessions allowed, though, that enable the free trade of goods and services in a non-business environment.

Sharing programs, like barter systems, require an element of trust, but also require the charitable (or in-faith) inputs of key members. Sharing programs generally have been limited to urban bicycle-sharing groups, or even automobile pooling, but may be designed to share almost anything, including technology, apartments, equipment and even vacations (think "timeshare"). These programs generally operate as true cooperatives, but offer very viable ways to reduce individual costs while maintaining lifestyles.

Pledge systems are similar to barter network, with the major difference being that items or services are pledged at a future date, while gaining the benefit that you desire today. Some of the community-built or Habitat-style housing projects operate on that premise.

Should you desire more information as to how to set up and operate any of these systems, contact the writer.

Food and Dining Out The Minimalist Way

“Hands off my food!” you say, when I suggest that you can trim an extra 5% off your grocery and meal costs.  Yet, those savings can be so subtle that you hardly will notice the difference.

I have a penchant for lists, it seems, and the process of “going lean” on your meals requires another list, or, at least, a record.  But it is simple.  All you need to do is to compile a total cost for your in-home meals, and a total cost for your dining out costs, for a period of six months.  This can be done easily, if you always pay for these items with credit or debit cards.  I recommend two subtotals (one for each section) and an overall combined total.  Divide by six to get your typical monthly costs for in-home food items and dining out events (including alcohol). Your target costs will be 5% less than the total average.  Some months, you may exceed slightly, but by closely monitoring every cost, you can compensate in other months.

The first series of suggestions focuses upon away-from-home meals.

When ordering alcohol (either at a lounge, restaurant or for a social evening at a friend’s home), alternate between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic beverage.  At a typical cost of $4-7 per alcoholic drink ($2-3 for non-alcoholic), four drinks per evening, one evening per week out, you will saving $48 per month.  To save an additional $3-4 per week, consider having your first alcoholic drink at home, instead of at the event.

By eliminating one meal away from home per month, you will save $40-50 per couple.  Instead of always dining at fancy restaurants, mix a fast food place into the mix.  Sometimes, these meals can even be less expensive than eating at home.  Drop one cup of exotic (or regular) coffee from your purchases each week, or substitute one regular coffee for the usual latte.

Many restaurants and entertainment venues offer discounts of 10-15% for groups of 10 or more, so party with larger groups of friends occasionally, and arrange, in advance, for the group discount.  Use coupons and specials frequently.

The second series of recommendations evaluates ways to adjust your food buying habits to cut costs.

Consider buying on Mondays. These are slower days, and often, culled produce or meats are available at great discounts, yet still are fresh.  Saturday evenings see the array of grocery items depleted, but there may be great deals available, too.  Buy products that are in season.  This does not just apply to produce.  Turkey, ham and fish all have better pricing at specific times of the year.   Produce can be frozen and stored for several months, if prepared properly.  During the off season, frozen vegetables and canned vegetables generally offer the best prices.

While there is no doubt that “buying local” offers great benefit to area producers, there is some doubt as to whether the policy is financially beneficial to consumers.  Certainly, mass-produced products are less expensive per unit, but there is an abundance of evidence that there are losses in nutrition  benefits in many cases.  The prevalence of contaminated food recalls attests to the risk of “assembly line” food production.  If you opt to cut costs here, be certain that you know the tradeoffs involved.

Bulk buying and participating in buying groups or cooperatives is a common strategy for cutting costs, but these options are not always available to urban residents.   Instead, look to buying multiples of items when those multiple unit purchases result in savings.  A corollary to this principle, though, is the need for caution when buying “family size” units, versus smaller sizes.  Many times, the 3-pound tub of margarine, for example, is more costly per unit than 1-pound tubs.  Comparing toilet tissue purchases is even more difficult, since single versus double rolls, or 12 versus fifteen rolls per pack do not give accurate means for evaluating value.  Each manufacturer puts different numbers of sheets per roll in their product, making apple-to-apple comparisons tough to do “on the fly.”  Even more confusing is that each sheet is a different size, or may be one, two or three ply. Watch cost per unit, and know specifically what each unit may be.

Now, I move to suggestions for trimming costs at home.

Start by cutting back on serving size.  I used to use one chicken filet per meal, regardless of the size.  Before long, I found that one-half a medium filet was adequate, and any trimmings left over could be used in stir frys. Then, I consumed only one half a baked potato at each dinner, instead of a whole one.  A half cup of vegetables is sufficient for the average person, instead of a full cup.  The list goes on.   At breakfast, for example, substitute a half slice of whole wheat toast for the usual full slice of white toast, and feel just as full.

Substitute one of your large afternoon snacks for two small ones, consisting of a handful of nuts and a piece of fruit, instead of a pastry, specialty coffee and another side dish. Cut your home coffee costs by saving excess prepared coffee and storing it in the refrigerator.  Use a reusable coffee k-cup (Keurig brand name), instead of the throwaway one-coffee unit. Bring your own snacks to work, and save money, in addition to enjoying snacks that are not readily available on the job.

Prepare many meals in advance, and freeze them.  Use culled fruit and overripe bananas for baking, or in composite desserts.  These produce items often are available at 75% off regular prices.

While this discussion of how to trim 5% from your food budget is far from exhaustive, it provides a very workable guide to saving money.  And where can this money be directed?  Anywhere you choose, from holidays to charitable giving.  Even though your food expenditures still will provide you with filling and nutritious meals, the ability to direct another 5-10% of your budget to worthwhile areas will prove to be fulfilling, instead of just filling! 

Minimalism In The Big City

Voluntary simplicity and minimal living have great cachet in today’s fragile economic times.  Frugal living is nothing new, and simple living has bee the mainstay of many environmentally aware people for decades.  However, the concept has not gained widespread acceptance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the tendency to look to rural living or escaping from the “big city”  standards of living as the primary technique for achieving a simple lifestyle.  Yet, living minimally actually is easier to undertake in urban centres, even though the social pressures to conform to more materialistic lifestyles are significant.

Living with less is the primary focus of this lifestyle, but, in truth, the most gratifying aspect of cutting back on frills is the ability to focus on the most important aspects of our lives.  That is unique to each of us, yet proponents of the way of living too often urge us to adopt their own perspectives and interpretations of simple living.   It is far from an accurate or satisfying approach.

My wife and I opted to live in a yurt, off the grid, for several years.  However, I would never advocate that everyone else who wants to embrace voluntary simplicity move to a rural environment, live off the grid or build their own yurt.  It was our personal preference.

Other acquaintances have employed a more basic approach to living in the city, without any difficulty and with a lot of enjoyment.

In the city, one has greater access to options than in the country, and greater opportunities to employ alternative strategies to reduce ownership while increasing enjoyment of assets and activities.

One of the greatest materialistic and economic burdens is the automobile.  Yet, any owner will tell you that the car is essential to daily life.  There are several options, however, to reduce reliance on personal ownership of a vehicle in the city.  While public transportation is the most frequently cited substitute, other alternatives include “car sharing” (where owners either opt for specific times of the day or days of the week to use a shared vehicle),  commuter vehicles (mopeds, etc), bicycles, weekend vehicle rentals (or on-demand rentals) and seasonal leasing.

Of course, to reduce the need for a vehicle, simply either move closer to work or search for a job closer to home!

In the 1970s, many young people (most often, young men) cut housing costs by sharing a house.  The modern-day extension of this concept is for homeowners who wish to cut housing costs to lease out rooms or share the house with other renters.

In the vein of shared housing, consider sharing other entertainment assets.  On average, a video or DVD is viewed fewer than three times, yet millions of us buy and store vast collections of movies.  Similarly, print books gather dust on the shelves after one or two readings.  Why not develop an exchange program with friends, passing these movies, CDs and books or magazines among the members of the group.  Lower cost, greater reach of each piece of entertainment!  Even many e-books can be shared or “loaned” on Amazon and other e-book vendors.  Hundreds of thousands of free songs and books are available, legally.

Inexpensive entertainment can become free entertainment, if you opt for “open house” days at local zoos, art galleries, museums and even local high school drama productions.  In summer, most cities offer myriad free entertainment, including bands, dance groups and theatre.

Many places offer discounts for groups of six or more people.  Inquire as to whether the entertainment venue that you wish to visit will provide a bulk rate, and then arrange for a group outing.

Weekly visits to restaurants form the backbone of the food service industry.  However, home-based parties provide a much more relaxed atmosphere.  Consider arranging for a regular rotation of hosted dinner parties (e.g. each member of a group of eight hosts once every two months).   

There are hundreds of ways to minimize costs while simplifying your life in the big city.  Most rely on the principle of owning less, or getting more mileage out of each possession.  Be creative, and the need to own will become less of an addiction, or even a craving.  At the same time, you will find that your budget dollars last much longer!

Of All The Most Important Things in Life, The Most Important Is Commitment To Others

Ask ten people what they consider to be the most important thing in life, and you may well generate ten different concepts of essentials.  However, explore those ten answers in more depth, revise the scenario to include the possibility of being isolated from human contact, and the critical concern that those respondents will come up with is that a specific person would be the most essential element to be included in that existence. 

Human beings are, like many beasts of the wild, wired to need social contact.  For some, that contact may be minimal, but all of us need interaction.  Does that mean that we view others as vital, or are we so completely narcissistic that we view fellow man as nothing more than a need to make our life complete? 

Regardless of why we need people with whom to interact, the stimulation that man provides for man completes a significant component of how we view ourselves. As far back as 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow postulated that the need for belonging, love, friendship and human interaction neared the base of his hierarchy of needs, just above the need for safety.

The male of the species has been bound, it seems, to man’s best friend – the dog.  While our connection to this four-legged friend undoubtedly offers something psychologically satisfying to humans, it lacks the completeness of human to human involvement.  The connection fulfills, on the surface, the need to have someone, or something else, understand us.

Gang membership, and, in turn, gang initiation, draws on the desire to belong, and to be involved in something that sees us, individually, as something special. While, superficially, gang members appear to lose that individuality, they do view themselves, in fact, as disparate and unique from the rest of the world, or the rest of the neighbourhood.

There may be precious little difference between the desire to be a gang member and the desire to belong to an elite club, or a segment of society that has riches to flaunt.  Both say to the initiate, pledge or member, “You are part of something special and unique, and therefore, you, too, are unique.”

The idea of looking to be a part of something that someone else cannot be a part of is coloured with liberal dollops of narcissistic personality.  Yet, is it wrong?  And how is it different, for example, from seeking to find that special aspect or part of our lives that fulfills us? 

I have chosen a minimalistic way of life.  Does eschewing material acquisition make be the antithesis of narcissistic?  Hardly.  I choose this lifestyle specifically because I feel that I want to focus, not on frills, but on fewer, but more significant benefits and luxuries in my life.  To simply forfeit things for the sake of forfeit gains neither the minimalist or society at large anything.  It is akin to being a lowly carrion-eater, and choosing to ignore the carrion that it finds, in case someone else might come upon it and want it.

When I began my journey toward voluntary simplicity, and opted to focus on fewer, but more significant things in my life, I had not contemplated the philosophical dilemma of choosing specifically what the most important thing in my life would be.  I had a concept of things and experiences that would be more significant to me than others, but had not established an absolute priority.  That changed, dramatically, this week.

On Tuesday, my wife awoke, drenched in sweat, breathing shallowly, experiencing numbness on her right side, and thoroughly nauseated.  Within seconds, I had her in the car, heading toward the hospital.  Driving as quickly as I could from our isolated home toward the local hospital, I called 911, and was escorted through  the protocols as I rushed to intercept the dispatched ambulance.  When I determined that I could make it closer to the hospital, rather than park on the highway and await the emergency vehicle, I became quite belligerent with the dispatcher who wanted me to be in an identifiable location for the EMS drivers.  My anger increased as the seconds passed, and my wife’s symptoms worsened.

Ultimately, the ambulance arrived, my wife was rushed to another hospital thirty miles distant (where better diagnostics could be conducted), and her impending critical incident was averted.  I am very pleased to say that, while she was close to a severe crisis, she has recovered fully, thanks to the speedy response of the EMS team and the skills and dedication of the hospital staff.

However, what I learned was that all of the important things that I had casually itemized in recent years truly were minimal in relation to the one important thing in my life: the valued relationship and love affair that I have with Janice.  I learned many valuable lessons, but the most vital lesson learned is that the most important thing in everyone’s life should not be a thing at all, but a feeling:  the feeling that you have for someone important in your life.  For many of us, that someone may not even be human, but a pet or animal pal.  The most important “non-thing,” even for us minimalists, should be a feeling that has its basis in narcissism, but ultimately ends in completely submerging our own wants and desires in favour of the needs of another.  Call it love, or call it selflessness.  Call it what you want.  The most important thing in life is to place all things behind the commitment to another living being.

Minimal Living Provides Opportunity To Spread Wealth

If minimalism or voluntary simplicity is about living with less, then the obvious corollary to the concept of minimal living is that such a frugal lifestyle will open up a surfeit of resources for other uses. I have discussed in many of my other articles that my minimalistic focus is toward enjoying the newly filtered aspects of life more thoroughly by de-cluttering my environment.
However, I have no desire to relinquish the pleasure that I gain from productive work. Thus, while I free up time to enjoy more targeted pleasures by eliminating redundancies and excesses, I also free up money.
Therein is one of the real bonuses of simple living: the ability to use surplus income for purposes that I find worthy; namely, a variety of charitable causes.
For instance, I have revived a cooperative housing project initiative that will enable those people who may not be able, otherwise, to afford home ownership, to engage in a strategy to purchase their individual homes through a group buying initiative. With my surplus free time and, fortunately, surplus income due to my frugal living approach, I am able to give back in areas of my own choosing.
Perhaps many aspiring minimalists are undertaking this new lifestyle because of budget constraints, or environmental concerns, or simply because of social conscience. Regardless, the new freedom that one discovers as priorities are rearranged to suit the minimalistic approach allow for more freedom to be charitable. It is often an unexpected frill that flowers from one’s new lifestyle.
Psychologists almost universally agree that a great contributor to unhealthy stress is the lack of choice. By freeing resources, by being less reliant on material success or need, a person is afforded a greater freedom to choose what is important individually. It is true, however, that when a person chooses to “ cut to the bone” on luxuries, and cuts the reserves that provide a “soft cushion” in times of financial hardship, a degree of stress results. The stress of facing a short-term bout of belt tightening on a frugal budget is far from the stress, though, than the stress of financial crisis when one is burdened with enormous monthly expenses. By trimming overhead, you open the door for more choices.
It is ironic that the greatest contributors to charities, per dollar earned, and the greatest number of volunteer hours committed are given by those people who live in more modest communities, states or provinces, and that those most likely to give in a crisis are those that have experienced a crisis of their own.
By entering the world of modest living through voluntary simplicity, a person almost automatically is drawn toward charity, volunteerism and community service, and, in turn, reaps the enormous benefit of reaching out to others.
As you contemplate your foray into minimal living, you may want to set out a template, or set of objectives, and include in that template the anticipated or sought-after benefits (as well as drawbacks). Work into your new budget an allowance for both time and money given to those in need, and establish that allowance as a priority. Simply by laying out, concretely and publicly, your intention to use your newly discovered freedom to benefit others, you will discover that your focus on what is significant in life alters dramatically. Again, it is an established psychological principle that, when a person publicly commits, even in a modest way, to a position or goal, he more adamantly defends and works toward that position in the future. Think, for example, of Weight Watchers or AAA meetings, where a public statement of commitment is used to drive dedication to an objective.
Consider that, as you gain freedom from stress and financial or material dependence for yourself, you also are opening the door for a more altruistic you. Go minimal, but give it your maximum effort!

The Minimalist Diet - Maximum Benefit From Minimal Ingredients

The majority of those who embrace the minimalist concept of living focus on their material assets, and relegate other aspects of their lives to secondary and tertiary status in the adopted lifestyle. Others focus on the frugality of one’s lifestyle, adorning economical living with minimal living. Some, again, opt to equate minimalism and environmentalism, with only modest justification.
Minimalism is a composite lifestyle, adopting numerous attributes from other approaches to interacting with one’s world, living life on a budget, and yet incorporating a love of luxury with a desire for simplicity. This is the way of fine art: remove the clutter around a feature piece, in order to focus more fully on the pleasure that that specific item exudes.
We, as minimalists, choose to de-clutter our surroundings and our mind, in order to appreciate the simplicity of living without that bric-a-brac. It is a relatively easy process. However, while we feed our soul, we ignore physical nourishment as it is impacted by our minimal lifestyle.
One of the tenets of simple living relative to simple eating is to focus, as in fine art, on one or two feature items.
For example, my wife and I love spicy, ethnic foods. Our favourites include Asian foods, from Indian to Chinese. However, on occasion, we crave a simple, more bland palate, such as simple fish and rice or chicken and noodles or potatoes. Since we also concern ourselves with healthy foods, we work with those key items (salmon & sea fish, green vegetables, fresh fruits, and an abundance of healthy nuts and grains). Simple recipes often require raw, fresh items.
Most people react predictably. Yuckk! Nuts & berries. Raw vegetables. Bland starches. That attitude is misplaced and misdirected. Working with the simplest of ingredients, a marvellous colour of flavour can be created.
We take our minimal approach further, by harvesting wild herbs and culinary plants from the wild, throughout the year. This cuts costs, while improving the diversity of diet.
But even with a minimum of spices and base ingredients, a host of meals can be prepared from very simple food options.
Let us look at a simple five pound ham, bone in. We trim out the bone, remove much of the fat, and set this aside, to be used last. On Day 1, we slice a thick ham steak, poached in water with tomato, oregano, mustard, ginger and garlic. It is our meal’s centrepiece. On Day 2, we slice a smaller slice, dice it, mix it with curry paste and ginger, toss in chopped peppers and onions and sautee it. On Day 3, we take another slice, dice it and mix it with onion, pepper, lots of garlic, and chopped potato and yam. Cooked in olive oil. On Day 4, the second-to last slice is cut thinly, wrapped around goldenrod leaves and sliced apple and peaches, then baked. Day 5, we use the remnants and leftovers to make a stew, adding the odds and ends left over from the earlier meals. Five meals cost us less than $12.
Of course, five consecutive days of the same meat, albeit with radically different tastes and textures, can become overwhelming. To alleviate the potential taste doldrums, we will do the same with a few pounds of fish, or chicken, achieving a wide array of taste experiences, while using a minimum amount of ingredients. In this manner, we are able to take advantage of seasonal sales on meat, as well as seasonal availability of wild herbs and domestic garden produce.
Simple living does not require relinquishing variety. In fact, living simply can afford us the opportunity to explore unique ways to get the most mileage out of every item, every day, while wringing the last drop of living out of each moment. Can we do anything less?

Minimalism Defined By Degree of Dependence on Assets

Minimalists place almost exclusive emphasis on getting rid of “stuff,” as if that is the panacea. Get rid of clutter, get rid of duplicate materials, get rid of ostentatious, overindulgent purchases, and so on.
While reducing dependence on assets is laudable, affluence is not the enemy, or is de-cluttering the solution to simplifying one’s life. By exerting oneself to part with items that have a link to your emotional or pedantic life, you are likely to experience a feeling of deprivation. It is one of the reasons why many advocates of minimalism recommend decreasing assets bit at a time, rather than immediately and thoroughly.
Why are we choosing to reduce our belongings? In many cases, it is due to the realization that we are wrapped up in a tornado of acquisition, seeking continually to own the best of everything.
Again, many minimalists suggest that the goal of minimalism is to reduce excess, so that we can focus on the remaining, valued items in our arsenal. What we are doing, then, is redirecting our efforts away from a blanket embracing of goods toward a bond with only a few, but a much stronger bond. In other words, we will be as reliant on assets as always, but we will cling to fewer of them!
For this reason, I urge that anyone who is considering a conversion to the minimalist lifestyle reflect very carefully on their reasons for doing so.
Is it because of the clutter? Then just reorganize! Is it because of the cost? Consider how to make your dollar work better for you. Is it because of the glamour of saying that you are unique? Consider how many “minimalists” live in the poor areas of your city, not by choice but by necessity.
Minimalism, as one blogger writes, has become the fad of white people. But few take the time to consider the impacts and consequences on oneself and those around us. Most importantly, we rush into minimalism like a crash dieter, and just as quickly fall of the regimen wagon.
Over twenty years ago -- ten years before I embraced minimalism -- I learned, firsthand, the impact of stuff on our lives. At the time, I had just entered into a business partnership that led into a huge growth of our operation. We went from annual revenues, between the two of us, of $125,000 per year to annual revenues of $1.8 million, in the space of a few months. We had hit the big time!
One of the “urgent” purchases I needed was a new car, given that I would be on the road for at least 80,000 kilometres each year.
I fell in love with a Plymouth Laser – hardly an expensive car, but what I really, truly wanted. My partner purchased a Mercedes – just what he wanted. However, I did not purchase the Laser. I imagined myself driving it, polishing it, speeding along Alberta highways in it. It had sex appeal! So I bought a Plymouth Colt 200 – a subcompact. I liked the Colt.
The reasons were simple. Because I loved the Laser, I would spend hours each week, cleaning, polishing, maintaining and driving it. Because I liked the Colt, I would keep it clean and in running condition. The Laser got 25 miles to the gallon, the Colt 42. The Laser cost $23,000, the Colt $12,000. I could repair the Colt myself. I could not repair the Laser. But the Laser came ever so close to winning the purchase lottery!
That one decision revealed to me that it is not the amount or the cost of the stuff we own, but the significance that we place upon things that controls us.
The big screen television may be more important than our daughter’s braces!
Not long ago, I walked through a coastal village in Mexico that had been devastated by a hurricane three years earlier. In beaten to the ground, I found a shell of a former home, now covered with six separate utility tarps, blowing freely. Two of the people who lived there were returning with 5-gallon jugs of water. The place was absolutely destroyed. Yet, in front of the home (where clearly, kids still lived), among the disarray of junk and broken lumber and two derelict cars were two –not one – satellite dishes!
The importance of that connection to television was so important that all other creature comforts paled.
There certainly was no doubt that this family lived minimally. But is it a choice that any of us would make?
If you are considering adopting a minimal lifestyle, I ask that you do one thing, above all. Sit down and evaluate, not the quantity of things you own, but the quality and tenacity of your attachment to items. Consider, thoroughly, what those items mean to you. If you do not, you’ll be like the impulsive parachutist who decided to jump, and then thought of putting on his parachute!

Converting to Minimalism? Know Before You Go!

Minimalists place almost exclusive emphasis on getting rid of “stuff,” as if that is the panacea. Get rid of clutter, get rid of duplicate materials, get rid of ostentatious, overindulgent purchases, and so on.
While reducing dependence on assets is laudable, affluence is not the enemy, or is de-cluttering the solution to simplifying one’s life. By exerting oneself to part with items that have a link to your emotional or pedantic life, you are likely to experience a feeling of deprivation. It is one of the reasons why many advocates of minimalism recommend decreasing assets bit at a time, rather than immediately and thoroughly.
Why are we choosing to reduce our belongings? In many cases, it is due to the realization that we are wrapped up in a tornado of acquisition, seeking continually to own the best of everything.
Again, many minimalists suggest that the goal of minimalism is to reduce excess, so that we can focus on the remaining, valued items in our arsenal. What we are doing, then, is redirecting our efforts away from a blanket embracing of goods toward a bond with only a few, but a much stronger bond. In other words, we will be as reliant on assets as always, but we will cling to fewer of them!
For this reason, I urge that anyone who is considering a conversion to the minimalist lifestyle reflect very carefully on their reasons for doing so.
Is it because of the clutter? Then just reorganize! Is it because of the cost? Consider how to make your dollar work better for you. Is it because of the glamour of saying that you are unique? Consider how many “minimalists” live in the poor areas of your city, not by choice but by necessity.
Minimalism, as one blogger writes, has become the fad of white people. But few take the time to consider the impacts and consequences on oneself and those around us. Most importantly, we rush into minimalism like a crash dieter, and just as quickly fall of the regimen wagon.
Over twenty years ago -- ten years before I embraced minimalism -- I learned, firsthand, the impact of stuff on our lives. At the time, I had just entered into a business partnership that led into a huge growth of our operation. We went from annual revenues, between the two of us, of $125,000 per year to annual revenues of $1.8 million, in the space of a few months. We had hit the big time!
One of the “urgent” purchases I needed was a new car, given that I would be on the road for at least 80,000 kilometres each year.
I fell in love with a Plymouth Laser – hardly an expensive car, but what I really, truly wanted. My partner purchased a Mercedes – just what he wanted. However, I did not purchase the Laser. I imagined myself driving it, polishing it, speeding along Alberta highways in it. It had sex appeal! So I bought a Plymouth Colt 200 – a subcompact. I liked the Colt.
The reasons were simple. Because I loved the Laser, I would spend hours each week, cleaning, polishing, maintaining and driving it. Because I liked the Colt, I would keep it clean and in running condition. The Laser got 25 miles to the gallon, the Colt 42. The Laser cost $23,000, the Colt $12,000. I could repair the Colt myself. I could not repair the Laser. But the Laser came ever so close to winning the purchase lottery!
That one decision revealed to me that it is not the amount or the cost of the stuff we own, but the significance that we place upon things that controls us.
The big screen television may be more important than our daughter’s braces!
Not long ago, I walked through a coastal village in Mexico that had been devastated by a hurricane three years earlier. In beaten to the ground, I found a shell of a former home, now covered with six separate utility tarps, blowing freely. Two of the people who lived there were returning with 5-gallon jugs of water. The place was absolutely destroyed. Yet, in front of the home (where clearly, kids still lived), among the disarray of junk and broken lumber and two derelict cars were two –not one – satellite dishes!
The importance of that connection to television was so important that all other creature comforts paled.
There certainly was no doubt that this family lived minimally. But is it a choice that any of us would make?
If you are considering adopting a minimal lifestyle, I ask that you do one thing, above all. Sit down and evaluate, not the quantity of things you own, but the quality and tenacity of your attachment to items. Consider, thoroughly, what those items mean to you. If you do not, you’ll be like the impulsive parachutist who decided to jump, and then thought of putting on his parachute!