Every Monday 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.
This week we hear from Aselle, whose newly minimalist lifestyle was inspired by a major move. Be sure to visit her blog to learn more about her experience.
Aselle writes:
Last year when my husband & I made the decision to relocate to Sydney, Australia from Auckland, New Zealand for career reasons, we were forced into a minimalist lifestyle. We were moving out of our three bedroom house in New Zealand and into a 15m2 studio in Sydney. When we prepared for the move I was flabbergasted by how much stuff we had. How can a young couple accumulate so much stuff? There were boxes and boxes of appliances, some were given to us as wedding presents and others we had purchased, and all of them were mostly unused. My hard-earned wages were staring me in the face as shoes and handbags. In fact I had managed to grow out of my walk-in closet in our bedroom and fill both of the wardrobes in our two spare bedrooms with my clothes and accessories. The move forced us to pack our lives into two suitcases in preparation for crossing the Tasman (or crossing the ditch as we call it Down Under). The rest of our belongings were either sold, given to friends, or stored at my parents’ house.
When we moved to Sydney into our centrally located small studio, I was too busy living our new adventure and experiencing this new city to miss any of my possessions that were sitting in storage in my parents’ attic. After a few months when we upgraded to our 44m2 1 bedroom apartment in central Sydney, my mum asked me if I would like to ship any of my belongings across but I had gotten used to the simplicity and convenience of our new lifestyle and I didn’t want to clutter it. Now every time I go home, I make time to dispose of more of my stored belongings and I am gradually getting there.
Our new lifestyle is a far cry from what it was less than 18 months ago. We take public transport or walk everywhere now. We love using Sydney as our backyard and we meet our friends at coffee shops or restaurants. You can follow our adventure and our new life in Sydney on http://kingsdownunder.com so pay us a visit as we would love to connect with you.
{If you’d like to learn more about minimalist living, please consider reading my book, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide, or subscribing to my RSS feed.}
Good for you for realizing you didn’t really miss your stuff! The Money Mustache family travels to Canada from Colorado for a couple months every year, leaving behind almost all their stuff, and they say they’re always surprised by how much they own when they get back. (Not that they own very much by American standards!)
Sounds like you have a great new life in Sydney, helped by realising you don’t need too much stuff with you.
I’m glad you’re sorting out the stuff left at your parents. You say you don’t want it cluttering up your new life…I’m guessing your parents don’t want it in their lives either.
Take a trip and sort it all out! :-)
I’m old enough to feel the effects of grown up children moving out but refusing to take all their belongings with them. I can’t bring myself to tell them that I will get rid of their stuff, but it hinders my own attempts to clear my house.
My brother emigrated 10 years ago, and he still has stuff in our parents attic! When he visits they bring the subject up, and he says it might be worth some money now, but he doesn’t actually do anything! Just because it’s difficult to deal with doesn’t mean he shouldn’t deal with it!
(This is not meant as a criticism of you Aselle, just a general comment as I hear of many parents still having to store their childrens stuff…if it’s important enough to keep).
Eleanor, I think this is a real issue for many people, but my advise would be to just bring a box of stuff with you to your children’s homes each time you visit them. (if they aren’t really making any progress at sorting out at your place)
You could even send a box every now and then via mail, it’s not necessarily as expensive as one might think. My granny sent me a couple of stuffed animals and other toys from my childhood for my 24th birthday. I had completely forgotten about them and it would have taken me longer to get back to them otherwise (I am always visiting her by train, can’t bring that much with me and she wouldn’t let me throw things in the bin). Now I got rid of most of them, kept two, and she doesn’t store anything for me any longer. Everyone’s happy. As she was sending me something else anyway, it didn’t even cost her anything extra (and even if it would have been just that it would have cost only about 7$)
Eleanor, I have to agree. This is not a criticism of the original poster, who sounds like she had a rather abrupt move handed to her. It is good she is settling in and making an effort to dispose of the no-longer needed items.
But truly, adult children who are long out of the nest – perhaps even decades out of the nest – using their parents’ home(s) as free long-term storage while they avoid making decisions about their stuff – is taking advantage of their family. Perhaps even worse if the issue has been raised repeatedly and the adult child does nothing to address the situation.
Conversely, I’ve also known retiree-age adults who insist on storing stuff they don’t want – but can’t bear the thought of anyone else having – at their own adult children’s homes – despite the adult children not wanting these “heirlooms”. It goes both ways, people trying to foist the responsibility for their stuff onto others. And it’s sad when the stalemate continues until one party dies and the house must be cleaned out.
As an adult child who has long since moved out of the nest, I have found it difficult to move stuff out of my parents’ house, but not for the reasons that you might expect. I’ve been cleaning stuff out of my old room for a couple of years now on every chance that I get to visit my parents. It’s generally a box of toys and/or a pile of papers and books. I’m a committed minimalist now and I don’t want any of that stuff, so it all goes to charity or to the recycle bin, but this year, I started to notice an unfortunate trend: my parents had filled the vacated spaces with stuff of their own! They love books and have filled the empty shelves in my room nearly as fast as I’ve emptied them. Believe me, I want to clear that junk out of my room, but my parents seem dedicated to keeping stuff in their house! I’m torn between emptying more stuff or leaving things as-is on my next visit.
I’m happy for you, Aselle.
In response to CountryMouse’s comment, I spoke to someone yesterday about my downsizing plans (we’re preparing to move to a space about half the size). She mentioned that she has boxes of stuff she inherited from HER parents (deceased) that’s she just storing, and when she’s gone, her kids can go through them. They will definitely have their work cut out for them, going through all her stuff plus those boxes from her parents.
Really like this story. What a nice way to pare down — once you got past the initial shock and big job of going from three-bedroom to a studio, anyway!
Keep paring down. There’s a lot of stuff that can go. Every day we get rid of a big bag of recycling and every week we give away a bag to
Goodwill. There is so much we don’t need to keep in our home.
Thanks for all your comments everybody. I do go back to Auckland, every 6-8 weeks for work, and whenever I am back I make sure to get rid of some of my stored belongings and I am almost there.
What a sense of relief :-)
I will probably never be an extreme minimalist. However, it does help me make choices. Of the various formal sets of china I inherited, my children wanted none. So I kept 4 place settings of the prettiest. Just a few serving pieces from some other sets. We seldom have guests for dinner, either we go out with friends or my son makes a party. If I ever downsize to a studio apt. I know what will go.
I got 2 full silver chests of silver plate. No one wants it. I am going to sell everything but the serving spoons. I have sold all the trays and big bowls. I had a big party a few days ago and no one in the family asked for anything. I have 2 china trays and 2 glass trays I use. My mother –age 89 — thought the paper plates were beautiful.
We went to a big barbecue/ birthday party yesterday. We brought cut up melon and an art book for the birthday girl. The hostess is a minimalist so I brought a picture of a piece of art I thought she would like to see.