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.
Thanks for sharing your story. I am slowly moving toward becoming a minimalist. I love the ease and serenity of having fewer possessions and having order with what I do have. I grew up in a large family and we did not own a lot, just made good use of what we had. Frequently used items had a designed location (i.e. the scissors were always put back in the scissors drawer.) Thanks again.
Hi, this is a very interesting article. I am just in the process of paying someone to scan my old journals, after debating about it for a while. I have always loved to handwrite my journals but I worry about privacy and now my hand gets sore when I write for any length of time. I did start scanning the journals myself but on a flat bed scanner it was taking ages. I didn’t want to toss them totally so I gave in and decided to get them scanned by a company then once its done its done.
For those who have scanned or typed their journals, do you keep the original ones and how do you journal now, onto the computer straight away or still in handwriting?
A few months ago my decluttering reached the shelf which held my journals. They cover nearly 20 years, many of which were not good ones. After some hesitation I decided that I didn’t want to revisit such an unhappy period in my life and shredded the lot. It felt very liberating:a statement that I’ve moved on from the weight of the past. And I composted the shredded paper, which said something to me about new life coming from bad times and recognition that they did contribute, however painfully, to my growth into a better place.
Hi ,Thanks for Rachel’s story. This is a request. I am from Uganda and director of a children’s home caring for abandoned and orphan children from 1 day old to 8years old. These children need many of the things you would like to get rid of order to live a minimalist life.
Please do send these items to these vulnerable children . Thank you.
I am reading many of your older postings. Have gotten rid of a lot of things and then got my mother’s things and got rid of those. She is trying to hoard papers in a room in a nursing home so every time I visit I bring a bag to fill with trash and recycling. It makes me remember why I’ve always had very few possessions of my own.
I am glad I never had many things. There is much less to get rid of now. I am trying to get rid of a bunch of articles I saved because I can get directions for almost anything off the Internet.
Most of the books I save are signed, art books, instructions, adult coloring books, and sudoku and crossword puzzle books I haven’t finished yet. I have about 150 books that are my Mom’s since she is in a nursing home and another 150 that belong to my son since he is renting a room at my daughter’s. We live next to a huge library and I can borrow books for a month at a time.
Most books I have are instructions for crochet. I have a few art books and quilting books. Two shelves worth. I have a big pile of CD’s, books and magazines to give away and I just gave away 6 magazines about gardening to my friend for her Girl Scout Troop. My husband has a lot of books but like me, he usually checks them out of the library.