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Declutter

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7 Essential Questions to Help You Declutter Your Wardrobe

Posted on March 12, 2018
Have you asked yourself these questions when trying to declutter your wardrobe?

With the new norm of fast fashion it can be easy for us to end up with an overflowing wardrobe filled with unwanted clothing choices that we no longer wear (and in some cases, never did) or that no longer bring us joy. We look into our bulging wardrobes and packed drawers filled with clothing options but still feel like we have nothing to wear. In this case sometimes less is more. When we can see what we have to wear, and compile a wardrobe of pieces that we love- with a little bit of planning, we can open up our wardrobe to better reflect what we need on a day to day basis.

But where do you start when you want to clear the excess and declutter your wardrobe? When we have so many clothes the thought of trying to go through them one by one and remove the excess can seem like an impossible task. Luckily there are questions we can ask that can help make the decluttering process of our wardrobes an easier and more successful event.

Here are 7 Essential Questions to Help You Declutter Your Wardrobe.

Let’s Get Started

Before you start going through your wardrobe grab three bins to help you organise your piles. They can be anything you have around the house: laundry baskets, boxes or garbage bags. This will help you keep track of what is what and avoid you getting confused down the line as the piles get bigger. Now grab a piece of paper and some sticky tape and label those bins – Yes, No and Maybe.

The Three Sorting Bins

Yes – These are the clothing items you want to keep. When you are done sorting, hang these back up in your wardrobe or fold them and put them back into your drawers. Remember to only keep what you can fit in your space.

No – These are the clothing items you no longer want. Donate this pile to a local charity clothing shop or bin. Be sure to toss any items that are non in sale-able condition.

Maybe –  This is a pile for those items that you are unsure about. For anything that ends up here, keep them in a container somewhere separate to your current wardrobe. Set a calendar reminder on your phone to review this container in three months time. Over the next 12 weeks if there is anything in the container you want to wear, you can ‘save’ this item. Anything left in the container at the three month deadline can be donated.

Two Decluttering Methods:

Now depending on the time you have you have two methods to declutter your clothing.

1. All At Once: You can grab all your clothes and throw them on your bed to sort in one heap or;
2. By Categories: You can declutter your clothes category by category: dresses, shirts, shorts, underwear etc.
If you have a couple of hours or more to spare, go for the All At Once approach. This will mean you can declutter your wardrobe in session and being able to see the sheer number you have piled on your bed will help you let go. If you only have half an hour or so, it’s best to either wait until you have more time to do the full wardrobe declutter, or in this case, work on one category at a time.

Now let’s get into those questions and get decluttering your wardrobe!

 7 Essential Questions to Help You Declutter Your Wardrobe 

1. Do I love this?
As you pick up each item Ask yourself if you love the item you are holding. If you saw it in store would you buy it right now? As Kon Mari asks in her book the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, ask does it Spark Joy? Pick one item at a time and see how you feel about it. Is it something you love to wear and find yourself always holding out for wash day to wear it again? Maybe it’s a piece that reminds you of a negative experience every time you see it? If it doesn’t spark joy and you don’t love it put it in the no pile. If it brings you joy and you feel happy wearing it put it in your Yes pile. Building a capsule wardrobe of clothes you love will ensure that everyday you get to chose your outfit from a handpicked selection of clothes that you truly love and feel comfortable in!

2. Do I currently wear it? 
Be honest with yourself. You know what clothes you wear regularly and what you haven’t touched in the past year. It’s more than likely it is the same outfits in rotation that you are grabbing each day. If you don’t wear something anymore ask yourself why? Is it something you would wear but it missing a button or needs a hole sewn? If so put it in a mend pile and get it repaired so you can wear it. Actually put your pile of to be mended items into your car and take them to the alteration shop that same week to avoid delaying wearing those items any longer. Is it out of style? If it is something you don’t see yourself wearing again let it go.

The Minimalists have a rule to help decide what you do and don’t wear called the 90/90 rule. For each item ask yourself if you have worn it in the last 90 days and if you would wear it in the next 90 days. If the answer is no, let it go. If that is too short, make it a 6 months post and prior rule the “180/180 rule” to cover a full year. If you haven’t worn it in the past 180 days (6 months) and don’t see yourself wearing it in the next 6 month period it’s probably time to put it in the no pile.

3. Does it fit? 
This seems like an obvious one, but we are all guilty of hoarding clothes for that magical day when we have lost all our unwanted weight. Does your item of clothing fit you or have you been holding onto it for years waiting to lose or gain weight so it will fit? If you are unsure, try it on. Maybe it does fit now and you can keep it, or maybe you will remember that it doesn’t and if that is the case let it go. If you are really attached to an item, and determined to get back into it, keep one or two favourites but let go of the rest. By the time you meet your weight goals, you will want to reward yourself and invest in a new fresh wardrobe anyway.

4. Does it suit your current lifestyle? 
A good rule of thumb is to keep at least 80% of your wardrobe of things you can wear on a day to day basis. You don’t want to end up with 90% of your wardrobe filled with dressy outfits that you can only wear on a Friday and Saturday night and have nothing much left to wear the rest of the week.

If you are change careers from working in an office to being a yoga instructor you can do away with the excess corporate uniforms. Maybe you only need to dress up at the occasional wedding or birthday party but have 50 dresses in your wardrobe? If so let go of any excess dressy outfits that you won’t be wearing to free up space for the clothes that you will be the majority of the time.

Related post: 17 Ways to Reduce Mindless Consumption in Your Life

5. If I found this in store would I buy it right now? 
This one always helps me decide when I am stuck on whether to keep to donate something. Ask yourself ‘if I found this in store would I buy it right now’? If you wouldn’t buy the item you are holding again for whatever reason – it’s itchy, the colour doesn’t suit you, it’s too tight etc add it in your no pile. This question can cut through any guilt about what you spent on the item and will lose by letting it go and take you back to the real question – Do I want to keep this?

6. If I could sell this would I let it go?
This was a surprising one that helped me let go of lots of excess clothing. I found that if I imagined a scenario where I could hold onto something or get ten or so dollars for it, I would most often take the money and be willing to let go of it. These items I would put into a sell pile to upload on eBay which certainly helped claw back some of the lost money and helped give me that little extra push I needed at times to let something I no longer wore, go. Finding items to sell as you declutter your wardrobe can make the parting process slightly easier when you know you’ll get some bonus financial wins!

7. Is it Me?
This is the last question I like to ask when decluttering clothing. Something may fit okay and you may very much like it but you need to ask yourself is it me? Do you have stilettos that you know you won’t wear because you can’t walk in them? Or a dress that you used to love wearing but now don’t really feel like you have anywhere to wear it or doesn’t feel ‘you’ anymore? Maybe you have lots of colours in your wardrobe and now prefer more monochrome tones? As we age our tastes, interests and likes change and so do our fashion choices. What you may have liked three years ago might be completely different now. By asking ourselves ‘is it me?’ we can curate a wardrobe that consists of pieces that make us feel confident, comfortable and true to ourselves.

7 Essential Questions to Help You Declutter Your Wardrobe

  1. Do I love this?

2. Do I currently wear it?

3. Does it fit?

4. Does it suit your current lifestyle?

5. If I found this in store would I buy it right now?

6. If I could sell this would I let it go?

7. Is it Me?

What questions do you ask yourself when you declutter your wardrobe? Please comment below with your tips and what you have found helpful 🙂

Minimalism

15 Intentional Ways to Simplify Your Life

Posted on January 11, 2018
Wanting more time and less stress? Check out these 15 Ways to Simplify Your Life in 2018!

Are you in need of some help to simplify your life?

Whether you’re starting a new year or not, now is always a great time to reassess our current lifestyle and make positive changes. One of the most common complaints from people is they don’t make enough time for themselves, or their families, or to just do things they want to do. We find ourselves filling up our free time with mindless Facebook scrolling, endless washing and cleaning, and doing things that we probably should have just said no to.

Make this year a year to remember, a year for you to work on how you can simplify your life. The start of saying no to things you don’t want to do and yes to things that you have wanted to do for too long. Take a step back and reassess what is important and what isn’t, what is adding unnecessary stress in our lives and what we want more and less of.

15 Ways to Simplify Your Life!

1. Declutter

There is no greater path to simplify your life than through decluttering. When we remove the excess we can focus more on the essential. By removing things that do not add value to our life we help to simplify our lives. By reducing the clutter in our homes we open ourselves up to numerous benefits. We reduce; the anxiety caused by too much stuff, the amount of time we waste cleaning and maintaining our stuff, and can soon notice the financial benefits when we are more intentional with our spending. Check out these 101 Things to Declutter in Your Home Right Now to get you started!

2. Learn to say no

Don’t fill in your weeknights and weekends and leave yourself no downtime or time to reset. It’s okay to say no to people and events and put your needs first. If there is an invite to something you are really not keen to go to for whatever reason; you can’t afford it, it doesn’t sound fun to you, you really feel like you can’t possibly cram one more thing into this week, it’s okay to RSVP no. Simplify your life by reserving your time for what truly brings you joy.

Declutter With Me Course

If you want help decluttering and simplifying your home – and keeping it that way – check out my course Declutter With Me, where I will teach you home to minimise the clutter in your home and give you tools and strategies to change your consumption habits for good.

If you are interested to learn more about my course you can by clicking the button below!

declutter my home? yes please!

3. Say yes to things you want to do

We can often get tied up doing the things we don’t want to do and the things we want to do end up falling by the wayside. Once we learn to prioritise our time better we have more time to do the things we really want to do like relax, exercise, watch a movie, learn a new instrument, read or whatever we like. By learning to say no more, we open up our calendar to say yes to more spontaneous things like a beach day when it’s perfect weather or hanging out with someone you just met.

4. Find joy in the small things

You don’t need to buy the latest iPhone or go on endless vacations to find joy. Don’t just live for big buys and get aways when there is joy to be found in everyday things. Make time to do things that adds joy every day and take the time to appreciate them.

It could be playing a game with your kids, watching an interesting documentary, having a hot chocolate and smelling a yummy candle on a relaxing night at home in front of the TV. When we learn to find joy in the little things we can simplify our lives and learn to appreciate the small things.

5. Remove and minimise toxic relationships

Toxic relationships add drama and stress to our everyday lives. They can consume us, take our focus off our goals and hold us back. Joshua Fields Milburn from The Minimalists in his blog titled ‘Fake‘ says ‘You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you’. 

This really is the crux of our relationships, we can’t change people in our lives but we can change who we keep close to us. Sometimes we need to remove or minimise contact with people in our lives, even if only temporarily, who take away from our happiness or that are toxic and detrimental to our well-being.

When we remove people that take our energy and bring us down and hold us back, we can remove an unnecessary barrier to our unhappiness and lead lives of positivity and growth. Sometimes even a simple conversation about new boundaries and expectations can redirect a toxic relationship into a more healthy one. Or maybe you will just be more conscious to limit the time you spend around certain people in your life that take from you and give nothing back.

6. Read more

Who has ever said I wish I had less time to read? Reading is a rewarding way to destress, learn new things, unwind and get lost in a book. When we make time to read, we are making time to sit down, stop all other distractions and focus on one activity that will aid you to simplify your life. Another benefit of reading is to teach you new skills that will help you to simplify your life such as a book on habit building.

7. Spend less time on social media

A lot of time can be freed up by spending less time on social media and on our phones. You probably don’t even realise how much time you are losing aimlessly browsing your phone. Make a conscious decision to use social media less. Simplify your life by deleting apps off your phone for a small period of time, but if that is too scary to consider, try timing your use. Limit yourself to your tea break only or put your phone away at a particular time each night. When you have important things to do put your phone on flight mode or hide it in a drawer so it is out of sight, out of mind. At a minimum, leave your phone off the table when you are having dinner with your partner, family or friends and just be present.

8. Simplify your wardrobe

Simplify your life by reviewing your wardrobe and identifying what clothes you feel are truly you at this time. Be honest with yourself about what you will and won’t wear. Don’t be afraid to let go of items you no longer need, you can always replace them with more suitable and loved pieces. When we limit our overflowing wardrobes we reduce the stress we encounter with picking an outfit before running out the door. Make your mornings less stressful by adopting a capsule wardrobe and simplify your life.

To get started you can grab your free Capsule Wardrobe Planner here!

9. Eat less and be more mindful with food

With YouTube, TV, Netflix, Messenger Chats, and all the other distractions we can sometimes find ourselves unaware of how much we are eating.

Simplify your life by being more mindful of what food you are eating and how much you are eating. Take your time eating. Acknowledge whether you are full and stop eating if you are and try and take note of whether you are just eating out of boredom.

10. Reduce Stress

Simplify your life by identifying things that cause stress and aim to minimise or eliminate them.

Is your work a toxic environment? Consider changing jobs.

Is your housework overwhelming you? Consider hiring a cleaner to come out and take the load off you.

Is going out all weekend not allowing you the time to reset and unwind after the workweek? Limit your outings on the weekend to one or two so that you have time to catch up on things at home and to relax.

Pay attention to the signs.

Is your heart rate elevated? Is breathing difficult? Do you feel overwhelmed and like you can’t stop worrying about things? If the stress is starting to have a negative impact on your life, seek help and see a psychologist who can help you with making the necessary changes and give you coping mechanisms for dealing with stress.

11. Limit your exposure to advertising

There is nothing more meaningless than spending your time watching ad after ad. Find ways to limit this and simplify your life. Some ways to try and limit exposure to ads is

-Sign up for Spotify membership and listen to your favourite music without the ad interruptions (although some podcasts still advertise but you can still skip though).

-Reduce free-to-air TV that is packed with ads and stick to ad-free streaming services such as Netflix.

-Be more selective of magazines that you buy as a large portion of them are just advertising.

-Considering paying for the YT subscription service to skip the ads

12. Unsubscribe from unwanted email subscriptions

Having an overflowing inbox with unopened email after unopened email can be soul-destroying. Simplify your life by eliminating unnecessary subscriptions from your inbox. Unsubscribe from each email as they come in if you feel that they do not add value and are cluttering up your inbox.

Not only will this save you potential money when you are no longer bombarded with sale after sale notifications, but will save you valuable time opening excess emails and managing them in your inbox.

13. Automate your finances

Take the stress out of budgeting and managing your finances and simplify your life by automating your finances.

You’ll save yourself the work of doing the transfers manually each pay and get the joy of watching your savings account grow over time!

Related Article: Check out How I Discovered Financial Stability Through Minimalism 

14. Limit your snail mail

Simplify your life with a simple phone call and get all your bills emailed to you and skip the hassle of sorting through mail each week. This will not only eliminate having to go through your mail but also avoid that pile-up of bills that is inevitable when you get snail mail.

You can also set up automatic filters based on keywords in your gmail account that will digitally file your bills for you, no need to do any physical filing at home!

Simplify your life further by limiting time wasted on collecting junk mail by sticking up a no junk mail sign on your letterbox. If you really need something you can quickly google it to find the best prices! And if you really want to browse a catalogue you can always find it online. I did this years ago and haven’t looked back! 🙂

15. Pack less when travelling

As someone who travels a few times a year (update post-pandemic: boo, hopefully I can back to my love of travelling soon!) this has really saved my own sanity. In the past, I would have packed 23kg of luggage to the brim plus carry on, assuming I would need more than I really did.

Do yourself a favour to intentionally simplify your life, the next time you travel pack minimally. It will mean less frustration at the airport waiting for your bags and dealing with lost baggage (trust me, losing your luggage one time is one time too many), will make getting around easier as your luggage is smaller and weighs less and travel will be much less stressful, and it’ll be easier to find things in your bag as you need them. And as a bonus, you will save money on hefty baggage fees if you are flying!

Do You Want Help With Spending Your Money With Intention?

If you want to learn how to spend your money with intention and in line with your values and take the stress and anxiety out of your money, book in for a free Q&A call to see how Minimise With Me financial coaching can help you gain clarity around your finances! 

You can learn more about my financial coaching services and how I can help you achieve your financial goals here. 

What changes have you implemented to help you simplify your life? What do you want to do to simplify your life this year? Share your thoughts in the comments below 🙂

Budgeting

17 Things I Did to Save More Money in 2017

Posted on December 20, 2017
Check out the 17 things I did in 2017 to Save More Money

As the 2017 year comes to a close I thought it would be a good time to reflect on financial decisions I made during the year to save more money and try and estimate the total money that I would have saved from those actions. I am more than happy to spend money on things that add value to my life or bring me joy, but I do not love spending my hard earned cash inefficiently.

We work so hard for our money, why don’t we find savings in the things that don’t take away from our enjoyment of life so that we can spend money of the things that do! When we find non value-adding way to reduce our spending we can allow ourselves to spend money where we like guilt free.

These are the 17 Things I Did to Save More Money in 2017. When I added the savings up just for this year they came to over $8000! I hope they will inspire you to find more ways to save in 2018!

  1. Shopped Around for Car Services or repairs.

When my husbands car was due for a major service within ten minutes I had retreived four quotes raging from $350 to $750. I went with the cheapest who also happened to be our regular and reliable mechanic. This can be more limited for newer cars that for extended warranty purposes need to go to the dealer service centre but for any other cars shopping around is a must if  you don’t want to pay too much for your car services!

Total Savings: $400

2. Reviewed my mobile plan frequently

I started off with a sim only plan that was $49.90 a month earlier in the year that had 10GB of data included. The 10GB never seemed to be enough for my needs so I often ended up paying for additional data on top of that. As a result the bill was often more around the $70-80 mark and certainly more than I was willing to spend on my phone plan.

I wanted to get my plan back under $50 so did my research and ended up switching to a 6 month discount offer for a sim only plan offering the same inclusions for only $24.99 a month to new customers. I figured even with extra data charges, the same deal would still fall under my $50 budget whilst saving me that additional $20-30 a month I was forking out.

Once that six months discounted period was up and I was back on a $40/month 10GB plan I did my research again and have just switched to a new plan which although will be slightly  less flexible (it is a 12 month contract!) it includes 15GB of data for the same price. The great news is I will no longer have to top up my data each month and pay any extra. I was also offered a 25% promotional discount on sign up so actually only pay $30 for the $40 plan.

Total Savings: $480 (Original $70 a month vs new $30 a month plan :))

3. Requested a better rate on our mortgage

I was recently talking with a friend about his plans to get a better mortgage rate and realised that it had been a little while since I had done the same. Jumping online I saw that my bank was offering new customers a 0.61% discount on the rate I was paying. I rang up the next day and requested that we get access to the advertised rate. Within a week I had approval and had signed the paperwork. This was a huge win for our budget and for us to save more money.

Extra Tip: Come prepared when you make the call.  Research what other banks are offering in terms of rates and ask your bank to match their competitors!

Total Savings: Our new repayment was $27.23 lower a total saving of $1415 for the next twelve months alone. Based on keeping our original weekly repayment over the current life of our loan this could save us up to $13500 and allow us to own our house 8 months earlier! This is real money and life changing stuff! 

4. Stopped spending creep and saved our raises

My husband and I have had the same weekly allowance since we started budgeting six years ago after moving into our first home. We made it a fair figure to us so that we could live within it without feeling like we were too restricted day to day. With any pay raises, bonuses or anything else we receive we do not just absorb those into our lifestyles (know as bracket creep) and increase our spending. We try to be intentional with anything extra we earn so that it is not wasted. When we get extra money it goes to our savings or straight onto our mortgage. If you want to save more money don’t absorb your future raises, put them away and watch them grow 🙂

Total Saved: A wage increase of $20 per week saved and not spent can increase your savings balance by $1000 over a year.

Minimise With Me Facebook Group

5. Reviewed our electricity and gas plans

Once a year I like to review our electricity and gas plan and see what deals they are offering new customers. After researching online and checking our latest bill, I realised we were not receiving the full discounts we could be. With a short fifteen minute call we went from a plan with an outdated discount of 16% on our Electricity and 10% on Gas usage to a current advertised discount on Electricity of 23% and Gas 17%. A bonus was that we got a $50 credit on our next gas and electricity bill for signing onto new plans. If you are not checking your utility plans annually you are going to find that you are on an outdated offer that is probably costing you more. Check it annually to the competition and their new customer rates.

Total Savings: $30/quarter on electricity and $11/ quarter on gas plus $50 credit Total savings $214

6. Limited our electricity consumption

Don’t stop the electricity and gas savings there, there are ways to save more money on your bills to put back into your pocket! After getting a few too many $500 a quarter electricity bills we decided we needed to make more of an effort so cut down out power use. We made sure that we used only the appropriate amount of lighting e.g. turning on one down light instead of the other power point that turned on six lights when we didn’t need that much lighting. We started turning off our TV each night and turning off our PC monitors and power. I set the air conditioner at 22 degrees on hot days rather than 18 (much to my husbands disapproval :p) and only used fans at night.

I downloaded our electricity providers app and started monitoring the week to week electricity use and savings. Within the first few weeks I noticed them drop by about $7 a week. Not bad! Not to mention when you can see your impending bill estimate it is a great motivator to turn off those power points!

Total Savings: $364

7. Got smarter with our herbs and fresh produce

As a huge Basil fan, I got sick of buying new Basil bunches week to week only to have them go bad within a handful of days. I was determined to find a way to keep them fresher for longer. Since then I have been buying the Basil plants from Aldi which sit on our windowsill, and seem to last weeks with a small amount of care. I also researched the correct way to store different foods to extend their shelf life which helped us reduce our food waste and the cost of replacing spoiled food so often.

Total Savings: Let’s guesstimate on the lower side of things, a saving of $10 a week in reduced food waste at $520 a year! 

8. Switched to high interest savings accounts

After reading the Barefoot investor, I realised how silly we had been leaving any number of dollars in our bank account that was paying a whole 0.01% on balances, a.k.a. nothing! After a small amount of effort we made the switch to Scott Pape’s favourite ING’s Savings Maximser which currently gives us 2.8% on any balances in our account which is a hell of a lot more than the big fat nothing we were previously getting! Nothing to motivate you to save more money then someone paying you to do it 🙂

Total Savings – $2000 Emergency Savings Fund will now be earning $56 a year in interest. Doesn’t sound like much but the more your balance grows the more your interest will add up! 

9. We stopped buying as many clothes

After adopting a capsule wardrobe I found the need to hit the shops for new clothes greatly diminished. After all, I had a perfectly functional wardrobe ready to go day to day. The only time we bought new clothing or shoes this past year is when we needed specific items. Knowing what we had in our wardrobe and only keeping what we loved really helped us to limit any desire to go out and spend a ton of money on a new wardrobe.

Bonus tip is to resist buying a new outfit for each event and to ask friends or family if they have something you could borrow for the night. Return the favour the next time they need a fresh outfit.

Total Savings: Who knows but over the long terms I am going to say lots! 🙂

10. Started having dessert at home 

I am a dessert girl at heart but spending $20-30 on dessert on our weekly date night was not really value for money in my eyes. Of course a girl needs her dessert on occasions so we started having our desserts at home. Instead of going out to Max Brenner or San Churro, or ordering dessert with dinner twice a month we started to make our own dessert at home. Desserts like home made scones, waffles with strawberries and ice cream are a fraction of the price at home. If we were not going home we were happy to grab a coffee or ice cream at the movies. Rather than spending $25 or $30 or dessert each time we were only spending $10 or less!

Total Savings: Opting in for dessert at home twice a month total saving $360 over a year

11. Found more creative ways to have fun

Saving money doesn’t mean missing out on fun. We just got a little more creative. Some nights we were more than happy to go home and watch Netflix rather than paying $40 to see a movie. When we did see movies we got discounted tickets which saved us 50% on the ticket price. We tried to go at times that the discount was valid where we could. On weekends if it was a beautiful day we would go for a walk or drive up the mountains. If the weather was crappy we’d crack out the Nintendo 64 and have Mario Kart Battles. Check out these Fun Frugal Ideas for more ideas on how you can have fun whilst you save more money.

Total Savings: Again a tough one to calculate, let’s guesstimate one night a month and $360 for the year!

12. Cut back spending on beverages

Coffee, beers, wine, hot chocolates they all add up to more than you would expect over the year. But making small sacrifices we were able to save more. Some ways we saved this year was by having hot chocolates at home. I buy Jarrah White Chocolate 10 packs which set me back less than $1 a cup! My husband chose quality over quantity and opted for drinking his favourite beers less often as a treat over cheaper beers more often. We also bought coffee for him to have at home to take with him on the go of a morning to skip the $4.50 or more morning coffee (I don’t drink coffee so that’s a big $0 for me ;)). So far we haven’t found one that stands up to his store bought versions but hopefully we’ll find a pro one in the near future! Coffee drinkers you could be throwing away $1170 on your morning coffee per person. We are working on that one 😉

We also cut back on our $8 fortnightly 24 water bottle pack and instead invested $12 in two water bottles and haven’t looked back.

Total Savings: Hot chocolate savings $150 and water savings $208

13. Started online grocery shopping

This was something that we adopted not necessarily to save money but to save time and make life a little easier. A great bonus of this decision was that we were buying less. When you are shopping online you aren’t walking past the sale ends or easy to grab, ever so tempting confectionery at the checkouts. When shopping online, the only way you will see those heavily discounted items are if you are specifically searching for them unlike in store where you’d be hard pressed to avoid making eye contact! We certainly don’t do this always, it takes some forethought but is a great way to help you reduce your impulse buying!

Total Savings: Complete random estimate let’s go with $10 a week and $520 for the whole year. Hopefully it is actually more 🙂

14. Got organised 

This one would have to be one of the biggest food saving methods in our budget for 2017. Through my decluttering journey I realised how much food we had been buying unnecessarily. At one point I found 8 cans of corn for two people, of which one of us does not like corn and the other one barely eats it. Go figure. We had kilos of flour, daily reminders that we had to find a way to use them up before they expired. All brought on from shopping on the go and not checking what we had in our pantry, fridge and freezer before we hit the shops! This was a huge realisation for our budget. We were shopping with no real plan and with little clue of what we already had to start with.

For a new aspiring minimalist the endless cans and boxes of stuff were starting to bother me, not to mention my knew found goals of reducing our household waste. We decided to get ourselves organised and got to work re-organising the pantry, fridge and freezer. Now that we could tell with a quick glance how many items of food we had we knew what we could buy and what we didn’t need within seconds. The cans were all lined up in a row on tiered shelves waiting for us to come and quickly check on shopping day. We also keep a shopping list on our fridge to write down groceries as they run out so we knew what needed to be replaced. This means that we only buy what we have used and need, anything else that sits in our pantry will end up getting eliminated from our shopping list in time.

Total Savings: This was a budget saving biggie! I am going to guess this alone has saves us $1000 over the year. 

Related Post: How an Organised Space Can Save You Money

15. We limited buying toiletries and other consumables

When I started on my minimalism journey I realised the waste that had occured in this area of our budget alone. We had about 10 bottles of shampoo and conditioner, about 8 cans of insect spray, a life time supply of air freshener, random and unfinished cleaning products, sponges galore – you get the idea! It was too much and completely unnecessary. Not only was it taking up space, cluttering our cupboards (clutter, ew!) but we were wasting money buying products that we didn’t need and couldn’t possibly use up in a timely manner.

It took over a year to use up our excess supply of deodorants, hand creams, body washes, soap you name it. It seemed never ending and really opened my eyes to the fact that you don’t need to buy so much of that stuff in bulk. We now only buy things as they need replacing and if something is on sale we will just get a spare 1 or 2 max, rather than buying 10 bottles. We also just stuck to the brands we loved. By only buying what we needed, we were able to spend on quality products and things that added value to our lives. Remember that saying quality over quality, we definitely found that to be the case.

Total Savings: My sanity!

16. Cut back on buying make up 

Now I have given this one it’s one section as this tip alone has the potential to be a huge budget saver! The old me would buy eyeshadow pallet after eyeshadow pallet, have 4-5 foundation bottles and 15 odd lipsticks. I would browse my local Price Line walking out with what I thought was the nicest shade of purple nail polish only to find I already had three similar shades at home. Not to mention that I never even paint my nails. Wrong! At one point I have four bottles of foundation open which was pretty ridiculous for a girl that only wore it to work or the odd outing.

Once I did my research I realised how wasteful this habit was. I was buying too much, more than I could possibly use up before the expiry dates. And yes make up expires! Most last 12-18 months which was truly eye opening experience! As with my groceries I now only replace my make up products as they run out. It is very rare that I will buy anything new that I don’t need as I no longer look at make up stores or aisles unless I am there to buy something I need to replace.

Total Savings: Not shopping for make up multiple times a month has saved me at least $240 a year!

17. I sold my stuff on eBay

My first eBay listing was a 4 pack of hair dye that I have bought and realised I was never going to use. I listed it for $10 as an experiment (I paid $20 for them so would have been chuffed to claw back half). They ended  up selling for $27 and from that moment I was hooked on finding things to sell around my home. I continued to chuck items up on eBay items for the next one and a half years making $965 back alone in 2017 for selling items around my home that I no longer needed! If you haven’t tried selling your unwanted stuff on EBay, CraigsList, Gumtree etc you might be missing out on some serious cash and serious motivation to declutter 😉

Total Savings: $965

Total estimated minimum savings in 2017 $8252

Do You Want Help With Spending Your Money With More Intention?

If you want to learn how to spend your money with intention and in line with your values and take the stress and anxiety out of your money, book in for a free Q&A call to see how Minimise With Me financial coaching can help you gain clarity around your finances!

You can learn more about my financial coaching services and how I can help you achieve your financial goals here. 

What tips do you have to save more money that you have tried in 2017? Please share them in the comments below 🙂

 If you found value in this post I would be super appreciative if you could share it with others who might also find value in it 🙂

Minimalism

10 Minimalist Gift Ideas to Add Value to Your Life, Not Stuff!

Posted on November 28, 2017

With the gift-giving season fast approaching it’s the perfect time to rethink our normal gift-giving practices and adopt new ones. Gifts can help us to show how much we care for a loved one but they don’t have to be things in order to add value to their lives! Even with the best intentions, buying stuff can cause friends and family long-term clutter problems.

There is the guilt associated with receiving an unwanted gift that we have no use for. The worry of where to store or display another gift, that may have been extremely thoughtful but you know that space is severely lacking in your home. There is also the stress associated with buying a large amount of gifts with a limited budget. Not to mention the inner struggle of trying to guess what someone else might need or like when most people probably have everything that they need.

Sometimes the best gifts are not things at all and are just as valuable and useful to us. A donation of time to a family member in need, covering an expense that adds value to our lives or gifting an experience can provide a truly memorable gift that will be remembered long after that new set of tea towels you didn’t even need are forgotten.

If you are looking to simplify your life and holiday gift preparation consider giving a minimalist inspired gift. Here are 10 Minimalist Gift Ideas to add Value to your Life, Not Stuff for your loved one that will hopefully bring a smile to their faces and add value and joy, not more clutter to their lives.

1.  A Gift Card for a consumable
Is there something they need or love? Consider a gift card for a consumable such as a subscription service they love. Examples are Audible, Kindle Unlimited, Netflix, Spotify etc. They can read or listen to their favourite book or have a month of movies and TV shows on you!

2.  A movie gift box.
Let them enjoy a night in or out on you. Include a Netflix gift card or tickets to their local cinema, popcorn, drinks and snacks. Check out this movie gift box for some inspiration.

3.  An experience gift.
Such as ticket to the zoo, aquarium or the observatory. Other options are tickets to a show, game, or to see their favourite band.

4. Offer your time or skills.
Does someone you love need a babysitter, help with doing jobs around the house, someone to teach them to cook? Or simply offer to take them someone special. Sometimes donated time can be the greatest and most helpful gift.

5. Get artsy or crafty.
Put your creative talents to good use. If you are a sewer, writer, singer, painter, photographer, give a personal creative gift to someone special.

6. DIY beauty products.
Unleash your inner beautician with some Pinterest recipes of beauty products for lip balm, bath bombs, facial or hair masks. Some great ones are Vanilla Brown Sugar Body Scrub and DIY Home Made Soap Jellies.

7. Give the gift of food!
Everyone loves dessert, you can’t go wrong with this one! Some ideas are an ice cream box with different ice cream toppings and sauces, a waffle box, home made-brownies or cookies.

8. Their favourite beverage.
Let’s not forget the drink lovers. Cater to your loved ones preference whether that be wine, beer, spirits, cocktails, tea, coffee or hot chocolate!

 >>Heading off this Christmas season? Check out these 16 Easy Tips To Pack Minimally for Your Next Trip!

9. Contribute to their upcoming holiday.
If your friend or family member has plans to go on a holidays in the not to distant future consider giving them money towards their trip to help them saving up for it. Alternatively ask them if there is a tour or attraction they wanted to do on their trip that you could gift them.

10. The gift of no gift giving obligation
Sometimes the best gift of all is simply saying to your family or friends not to worry about a gift. Gifts involve, planning, shopping, wrapping, carting them around on the day not to mention the cost of buying them. Save your loved one the stress associated with hitting the shops, finding a parking spot and managing the chaotic crowds at this busy enough time of year and give them the gift of freedom. Freedom from any obligation to buy you a gift so they can invest their time and money in something more valuable to them. Agree to forgo gifts and just enjoy each others company!

What are your minimalist gift ideas? Have you made any new family traditions around gift giving? Do you and your friends say no to gifts or have you found more creative ways to give at Christmas and other special occasions. Please share your ideas to simplify in the comments below!

Minimalism

The True Cost of Our Stuff

Posted on June 12, 2017

Often when we shop our main decision basis is one of price. We review the price tags as well as asking ourselves questions like; is it on special? Does it come with something free? Can I get two for one or buy one get one half price? We assume that we are frugal or budget savvy by considering these price points before purchasing. The issue is that this often means that the true cost of a purchase is not considered.

When we only consider these price points in the decision making process for new purchases we forget the most important costs. One of the prime and irreplaceable costs being – our time. One of my favourite quotes is from Minimalist blogger Joshua Becker from Becoming Minimalist. He says “We don’t buy things with money. We buy them with hours from our lives.” A thought I try to be conscious of this each day.

Before we head out to the shops, or to buy something online – or anywhere, we need to consider a few things. Not just the money spent to make that purchase, but the investment of time involved in owning something. This assessment allows us to truly make wiser purchasing decisions and to consider the true cost of our stuff.

There is much more that needs to be considered than just price alone. Here are 7 other things you should consider when making purchasing decisions to assess the true cost:

  1. Lack of mobility

When you consume excessively your rob yourself of future opportunities. What if a new position came up interstate that would be perfect for you but because you have a huge home filled with stuff you can’t move. What if you find the perfect rental property and you need to be out in a week but miss out because you can’t physically pack up all of your stuff that quickly. What if you need to sell your house whilst the market is booming but you take three months to declutter and pack your stuff and during that period the market drops suddenly and you lose thousands in the lost market price? Having too much stuff can hold you back from decisions that make you happy and add to your life and stop you from being mobile when you need to be.

  1. Environmental Cost of Excessive Consumption

When we consume in excess we increase our impact on the environment. Everything you buy comes with packaging – boxes, plastic, tape, tissue paper, foam and other stuff that will quite possibly end up in landfill. Not to mention the cost on our natural resources. Clothing manufacturing uses vast amounts of water and chemicals. The more we buy, the more our valuable resources are depleted and the more waste we create.

This impact is often not seen by the consumers but born by the wildlife and locals who live in the areas of manufacturing. Check out True Cost on Netflix for a great documentary on the environmental and human cost of our fast fashion industry. 

  1. Opportunity Cost

This is the cost of what you could have done with that money had you not spent it on a new outfit or tech gadget. Instead of buying more stuff you could have invested that cash in yourself such as; by starting your own business, signing up for an educational course, contributing to your retirement, going on a holiday, paying off your mortgage or other debt. All these things have the potential to greatly improve your circumstances.

When people reach the end of their lives the common regret is not wishing they bought more things over there life times, but wishing they would have spent more time with family and friends and traveled more. There would be more time to do in our younger years if we stopped working more and more to buy things we don’t need. Rather than spending our hard earned cash on more stuff, we should consider the true cost – the opportunity costs of spending that money on stuff which could have been redirected to save for our future and retire earlier and have more time to spend with the people we love, doing things we truly enjoy!

  1. Less time for your important relationships.

Whilst you are spending all Saturday morning cleaning your large home you’ve missed out on brunch with a friend, going out with the kids on a road trip, a morning walk with your wife.

The more stuff we have the more time we invest in cleaning it, maintaining, repairing not to mention the other stuff we don’t think of – the time we spend unpacking and setting it up, the time we spend reconciling our accounts each month, filing our receipts, finding a place for the item, washing it, moving it to dust or vacuum. The list goes on.

When buying something new ask yourself what is the true cost of this item? Are you prepared to spend the extra time to look after this item, dust it regularly, iron it weekly, pay for maintenance costs, take it for repairs when necessary and so on.

This goes for buying a house. A house is one of the biggest drains on your time. Consider whether you really need a two story mansion for you family of three or if you would rather spend the time you would have spent cleaning each weekend with your family not to mention the extra work hours needed to cover the larger mortgage.

 

If you like this article you may also be interested in reading “10 Benefits of a Minimalist Inspired Life“.

 

  1. The Cost to Our Health.

The more we spend, the more money we need to bring in to stay ahead and on top of our debt. Maybe you are working 80 hours a week to bring in the big bucks to keep up with your spending. As a result of overworking you get home too tired to spend time with your family or do anything for yourself like exercise or read a book. You begin to live for the weekend with Monday to Friday just being a blur of alarm clocks and falling asleep on the couch.

Not only is your health suffering from lack of time to exercise, cook a nutritional meal and relax after work but you will be carrying around a lot more stress if you are living pay-cheque to pay-cheque. This can soon escalate if you are constantly worrying how you will meet your bills and debt repayments each month. Many people are reaching retirement age saddled with large consumer and mortgage debts without considering the consequences if they suddenly have to retire due to health concerns.

  1. Anxiety and Stress Caused by Excess Clutter

Having lots of stuff adds stress and anxiety into our lives even if we are not aware of it. Clutter makes it difficult to relax physically and mentally and can make it an embarrassing time if unexpected guests rock up. Not to mention the added stress of not being able to find things, having to step over things constantly, pick up things endlessly to tidy up, or seeing cluttered spaces every time you open your drawers or wardrobe. The clutter is always there to remind us. This stress can be reduced by minimising your possessions and limiting what new items you bring into your home. Having space in your home, a sanctuary that you love can do wonders to alleviate stress and anxiety.

  1. Missing Out On Valuable Experiences

When we become so obsessed with buying more and more stuff we often miss out on the important things in life like experiences. How many people do you know that have never been on a holiday but easily spend money on other things without much thought – their nails, a daily coffee, an expensive car, new jewellery or outfit for a party. They constantly say I can’t afford to travel and yet don’t realise that if they were just a bit more intentional with their spending that they too could go on an occasional holiday. Whether it be a local one, interstate or overseas.

It doesn’t even have to be a holiday. Maybe they want to go to a fancy restaurant for their anniversary but can’t afford it. Sometimes we place more value in things that we can see and hold and keep and hold onto for years and years and we forget the importance of creating memories with loved ones. If you just saved $20 a week – just 2.5% of a $50000 annual after tax salary, you would have over $1000 saved with interest to invest in an experience that is important to you. It could be a weekend away, spa day and nice dinner and only takes a very small sacrifice each week.

Have you identified the true cost of stuff in your life? What changes have you made since to your purchasing choices? Share you comments below 🙂

Check out How I Discovered Financial Freedom Through Minimalism for more benefits on focusing less on our stuff and more on what is truly important to us.