Every Monday (when I have participants) I post Real Life Minimalists, a profile of one of my readers in their own words. If you’d like to participate, click here for details.
I don’t have anyone scheduled after today’s post, so I’d love to receive more stories. I know there are more Real Life Minimalists out there — don’t be shy! 
Today, A Working Rachel tells us about her minimalist lifestyle, and her own experiment with the 100 Thing Challenge. She also writes about personal finance on her blog — check it out to learn more!
A Working Rachel writes:
Hi, I’m Working Rachel. I think the biggest reason for my minimalism is that I’ve moved a lot. My first big move was to Germany when I was ten. Even then I found it kind of fun to pick which items would be in the big “3-month” shipment, which items would go in the smaller “2-month” shipment, and which I would bring with me on the plane.
In college my parents moved to England, and the experience of lugging suitcases full of keepsakes and “out of season” clothing on international flights made me committed to only keeping things that really mattered to me. I decluttered most of my childhood possessions, and for several months I got rid of one thing a day. 10 years later, the only thing I regret getting rid of is my stamp collection. My favorite teddy bear and a few papers mean more than having boxes full of childhood clutter.
I’ve stayed fairly minimal throughout my twenties, but over the past year I’ve gotten more extreme again. Recently I made a list of my possessions, and I have about 400 personal things, including books, but not including the things I share with my boyfriend, like kitchen items. I’m an avid reader and used to own several hundred volumes. I now own about 50 books total: a favorite fiction series, some things that are out of print or hard to find, and signed copies of a few favorites. For everything else, I rely on the library, the Internet, and Paperbackswap.
Right now I’m experimenting with living with 100 things for 30 days—clothes, books, hobby items, personal care things, and so on. Two weeks in, it’s been surprisingly painless. I’ve only used about 75 of the 100 things. I’m getting a little tired of my mini-wardrobe, but haven’t missed any specific clothes, so I think I mostly need to be more creative with what I have. I’ll be taking a business trip next week, which will be the real test of the experiment, since I’ll need to dress up.
I don’t think I could ever go to 100 things total, but I like the idea of slowly decreasing what I own. I’m working on digitizing most of my papers, including my journals. I’ve typed up several middle school and high school journals, saving only a few special pages. This sounds like sacrilege to a lot of people, but to me it means I can search and access my old journals easily without having them fill an entire shelf of my bookcase.
My minimalist ideal used to be to fit my life into a backpack or carry-on suitcase, ready to go anywhere at the drop of a hat. I’m still a minimalist, but my minimalism is more rooted. Now my ideal is a calm, serene house, free of clutter, a house that helps me concentrate on what’s important in my life and possessions that help me get things done rather than getting in the way.
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This article was very helpful (and so is Rachel’s blog as she gives reasons and examples). For someone like me who is just getting started with living a more minimal life, – married, one adult child still at home, a dog, a cat, a garage, a yard, 3 vehicles, a house full of clutter – all this talk of freedom is very enticing. I’ve started free-cycling and am currently culling my keepsakes. I’ve been pretty ruthless, and it’s fine.
I’ve used the library and interlibrary loan for books for years now and wonder people would pay good money to buy new “bestsellers” and then stow them away on a shelf or box. We also quite buying DVDs as Netflix works well. It is easier when you are older (I’m 58) because your values change toward experiences and away from things as time becomes more precious.
Thank you for the encouragement and ideas.
Thanks for sharing your minimalist experience.
I like that your minimalism is practical. You want to be able to fit everything into a backpack or have a calm house. So many minimalist setups are minimalist just to be minimalist.
Again, thanks so much for your inspiring story. It makes me want to declutter a bit.
I like your story, Rachel. You even have a minimalist writing style–which I like, as a copy editor.
I’ll have to check out your blog. I thought it was interesting that you are typing in your journals. I think it’s a good idea, but isn’t it tedious, both the typing itself and going back over every word you wrote? I don’t know if I would want to do that. I still have all mine, but I’m not sure why, as I don’t really enjoy reading back through them. Maybe I will one day (?). Thanks for your story!
Thanks for sharing this, Rachel. It’s really interesting how your childhood experiences influenced your minimalism.
You’ve inspired me to work on my journals — wasn’t sure whether to type or scan them, but I think I will type so that I can search them. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing, Rachel!
I think that minimalism and personal finance go hand in hand, and their meanings may be slightly different to us at different points in our lives.
Hi Francine! Thanks again for sharing a story of another aspiring minimalist!
I have really been enjoying your blog.
I recently wrote a post about obligating myself to too much stuff but when I read
yours and other minimalist blogs I find it a lot easier to think straight
and get back on track.
Thank you!
I’m glad you’ve all enjoyed Rachel’s story! I love doing this feature, and hope some more volunteers will come out of the woodwork…
Instead of typing you could download Evernote and just scan them in there.
That way your writing remains intact and the document becomes searchable by
The words on the page. It’s an awesome program for minimalist people and it’s free!
I know this was posted a while ago, but I also thought it was interesting about the journals. I have been wondering myself what to do with all my old middle school and high school journals. A while back a ripped out all the pages and stapled them to sheet protectors and placed them in a binder. (I only used most of my journals half way so I had lots of empty pages) I thought about typing them, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through with it or not, but this inspired me to. Glad I’m not alone in wanting to do something tedious for minimalism!
I threw away all my old journals & desk calendars I had used as mini-journals. As I skimmed over them I found a lot of it was memories I’d rather not dredge back up. I already know I had some bad times, I don’t need to read about them all over again.