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A Short Guide to Consumer Disobedience

I live a minimalist lifestyle for many reasons: for example, I love the freedom, the flexibility, and the financial benefits of not owning a lot of stuff.

But I must admit, it’s also a chance to indulge my inner rebel. I’ve been a straight-A student, model employee, and overall law-abiding citizen; yet when it comes to consumerism, I can’t resist my desire to stick it to the man. ;-)

When I see ads for luxury cars, designer handbags, trendy clothing, and electronic gadgets, I become more determined not to buy them. When I see promotions for loans, mortgages, and credit cards, I become more convinced to stay out of debt.… {Read more}

A Big Thank You

This weekend, I discovered that The Simple Poppy wrote a wonderful (unsolicited) review of my book on her blog. Read it here, and check out the rest of her fabulous site while you’re there.

I was so delighted, I wanted to give her a big, public “thank you” — and for that matter, extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the bloggers who’ve reviewed my book over the last few months:

Minimalist Woman | The Joy of Less is a Joy to Read and Use

Redefining the Meaning of Wealth | The Joy of Less by Francine Jay

My Journey into Minimalist Living | The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide

The Gardeners Cottage: the joy of less

Simplicity by Sunny | The Joy of Less by Francine Jay

The Simple Dollar | Review: The Joy of Less

Shopaholly | Women Who Inspire Me – Francine From Miss Minimalist

Married With Luggage | The Joy of Less: A minimalist living guide

Rowdy Kittens | The Joy of Less

We Live Simply | Miss Minimalist gets it right – the joy of less

(If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!)

I’m also eternally grateful to everyone who’s written Amazon reviews of The Joy of Less.… {Read more}

A Year Ago on miss minimalist

My Minimalist Story, Part 5: Starting Over: Don’t get me wrong, apartment hunting in a foreign country was an exciting experience—in fact, it’s something we’d always fantasized about on our travels. Unfortunately, however, it marked the end of our blissfully minimalist, hotel life. It had been my long-time dream to live in hotels, with nothing more than a single suitcase; and I was fortunate enough to realize it, for six weeks, while we moved from the US to the UK… {read more}

Minimalist Living: Life Without a TV: For years, my husband and I talked about giving up our TV.… {Read more}

Real Life Minimalists: WellHeeledBlog

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. (Note: the schedule is now full through January — but if you don’t mind waiting, feel free to send me your submission!)

This week, we have a wonderful submission from WellHeeledBlog. She explains that for her, minimalism is not about placing arbitrary limits on her things, but rather being mindful of what she owns and the choices she makes.

WellHeeledBlog writes:

As a personal finance blogger, I am often searching for ways to make my money work for me.… {Read more}

My Minimalist Wedding Ring

This week, Tammy of Rowdy Kittens wrote a wonderful, very thoughtful post about her wedding ring. I liked it so much, I was inspired to write one about mine.

When my husband and I married five years ago, we were already well into our minimalist journey. Instead of a big, expensive ceremony, we opted to elope to Iceland – I packed my dress in a standard ziplock bag, and we sent out postcards from Reykjavik announcing our nuptials. It was a beautiful, romantic experience; and best of all, the event left us with no debt or excess possessions.

Accordingly, I wanted my wedding ring to reflect our minimalist philosophy – so I chose a simple band with seven tiny diamonds across the top (pictured at left).… {Read more}

A Year Ago on miss minimalist

My Minimalist Story, Part 3: My Life in a Duffel Bag: For six weeks this summer, I lived my minimalist dream—residing in hotels, with all my possessions in a single duffel bag. My husband and I purged almost all of our stuff, and sold our house at the end of July. However, we still had to wait several weeks for our visas to be processed before we could move to the UK. In the meantime, we “lived” in a series of hotels, as we wrapped up our old life and prepared for the new… {read more}

My Minimalist Story, Part 4: Our Dirty Secret: From the time we decided to move overseas, my husband and I fantasized about owning nothing more than we could carry with us.… {Read more}

Real Life Minimalists: R. S.

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. (Note: the schedule is now full through mid-December — but if you don’t mind waiting, feel free to send me your submission!)

Today, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to R. S. She has two young children, and shares with us how she and her family have simplified their lives — and the payoffs of doing so! To read more, please visit her blog, The Suburban Minimalist.

R. S. writes:

First, the caveats: We are definitely in-process.… {Read more}

Welcome, Zen Habits Readers

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who’s come over from Zen Habits. It was such an honor to write a guest post for one of my favorite sites!

I’ve been blogging about minimalist living since September 2009, so there’s quite a bit of reading here. Therefore, I thought I’d share some of my favorite posts with you, as a little “Getting Started Guide” to my site.

I moved from the US to the UK a little over a year ago, and sold almost all of my possessions in the process. These posts detail my experience of paring down a houseful of stuff to one duffel bag:

My Minimalist Story, Part 1: A Clean Slate

My Minimalist Story, Part 2: The Great Unraveling

My Minimalist Story, Part 3: My Life in a Duffel Bag

My husband and I downsized from our 1000-square-foot, 3-bedroom house to a 390-square-foot, 1-bedroom apartment.… {Read more}

The Space Between the Notes

French composer Claude Debussy said, “Music is the space between the notes.” As a minimalist, I love this quote: it reminds us that beauty needs a certain amount of emptiness to be appreciated.

The space between notes allows them to resonate, reverberate, and reach their full measure of expression. Without this space, noise and cacophony would result.

The same can be said of our lives: too much clutter can stifle our creativity, and make our lives chaotic and discordant. Conversely, the more space we have, the more beautifully and harmoniously we can live.

Create Your Symphony

Think of every possession, every activity, every moment of your life as a note in your symphony.… {Read more}

Minimalist Workhorse: Mason Jars

Those who’ve read my book know I’m a huge fan of versatile items – from both a minimalist and ecological standpoint, I think it’s better to own one multi-functional item than several single-function ones. In my opinion, the more uses something has, the more worthy a place in our households.

When it comes to multi-functional items, I’m hard-pressed to think of a better workhorse than the humble mason jar. Besides their obvious use for canning and storing food, they can fill myriad other roles in our homes: from serving as lanterns, to drinkware, to impromptu piggy banks.

The best part: they can do double-duty as both storage and décor.… {Read more}