Browsing Tag

Intentional living

Minimalism

6 Ways to Reduce Your Social Media Use

Posted on October 10, 2022

How addicted are you to your phone and social media? If your answer is anywhere between ‘heaps and extremely’, it might be time to set some boundaries to reduce your social media use.

It doesn’t have to be anything drastic, like swearing off smartphones (unless you want to, then go for it!), but here are 6 Ways to Reduce Your Social Media Use to help you be more intentional when it comes to your social media use so you can have more time for the more important things.

6 Ways to Reduce Your Social Media Use

Consider deleting your social media apps from your phone

If you have a bad habit of reaching for your social media apps on auto-pilot you might want to consider disabling or deleting your social media apps from your phone. This might mean that you can only use your social media from your home PC and this might go a long way to putting a barrier between you and your phone addiction.

You can also do things on your home PC, such as disabling your Facebook newsfeed which can help you limit distraction when using social media and eliminate some of the ‘noise’.

2. Set a timer as a boundary for your use

If you want to avoid blowing time checking your social feeds and be more intentional, it might be a good habit to implement time limits on your social media use.

You can do this, by agreeing to a time you will allow to use the app on your phone or computer, and then when your timer goes off on your phone, or watch (I use my FitBit for mine) you know that you have used up your allocated scrolling time.

You can go a step further with this and set time blocks when you are and aren’t allowed to use your phone. Perhaps you are only allowed to use it on designated break times, or you only want to check it on the train ride between 7 and 8 am or 5 and 6 pm, you can choose to disable your app outside of these times.

Plugin Self Control will also allow you to block access to pages on your computer for a period of time, or all together! Of course, you can turn it off when you wish, but it’s another excellent barrier option to help you be more mindful of your time!

3. Find new things to do

Instead of aimlessly browsing social media put your phone down and do something else. We’ve all had access to our mobile phones for so long that we don’t even know what life is like without them. Let’s try and remember and do things that don’t involve scrolling our phones.

You might do the following which will go a long way to using your time in a better way.

Read a book (these are some of my favourites*)
Go to the gym
Go for a walk (leave the phone at home!)
Text, email or call a friend
Declutter a space in your home
Ask a friend to come to meet you for lunch
Watch a new vid of a favourite Youtuber or a doco on a topic that is important to you

4. Be more selective of who you follow

When was the last time you reviewed your followed accounts or friend list? Unwanted accounts that don’t add value can take up valuable space in your news feed, so you don’t get to see the posts you really want to. This means you stay on the app longer and spend more time on there. Good for social media companies, but not so good for you.

Not to mention the negative impact when you follow particular accounts whether that is people you no longer want to associate with or accounts that make you feel worse about yourself. If you aren’t learning, feeling inspired, or being entertained it might be time to unfollow some accounts.

Take a few minutes to sit down and unfriend/unfollow people who don’t add value to your life or news feed. This is a great time to unfollow family, friends, acquaintances, etc whose posts don’t add much to your online experience. If you have any negative nellies on your social media, be sure to unfollow, or unfriend them as well. I’ve had to unfollow a few people due to their negative posts and have felt all the better for it.

Once you have minimised your social media lists, your feed will ideally be more relevant and show the people’s posts you want to see.

If you are a member of too many Facebook Groups, it might also be a good time to reassess how many you actively participate in and leave any others that don’t add any value to you.

5. Resist the urge to share everything

I’ve made a conscious effort over the years to reduce posting on my social media and restrict it to the things I really want to share and want to look back on. A picture of my plate doesn’t really cut it anymore and takes me away from just enjoying the moment. I prefer to reserve my posts for those things I really want to remember such as photos of a trip or a photo taken on a special occasion.

This year, see if you can limit how frequently you post on social media.

Enjoy your amazing breakfast without sharing the photo. Walk out the door without taking a selfie of your outfit. Resist posting that 3rd post today about your dog, cat, car, meal, etc. Maybe keep the sharing for just the big stuff like your birthday, or a holiday rather than posting multiple times every day about what you are eating, wearing, what you are doing, who you are with, and so on. Of course, it is great to keep friends and family updated with what is going on in your life, but let’s try and make an effort this year to post with more intention.

6. Implement a Social Media free day each week

The Minimalists have a challenge ‘Screen Free Saturdays’ which is another way to limit your social media use. It doesn’t have to be a Saturday or even a whole day, but if you can a time during the week to go without your phone and social media it will go a long way to giving you some of your valuable time back. Even if you can make your own Screen-Free rules such as no phones after 7 pm or before 9 am. Whatever you like! Any attempt to reduce your social media use will make a positive difference!

Photo by Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash

How do you plan to reduce your social media use? Let me know in the Comments!

Minimalism

8 Things I Used To Do That Now Seem Weird To Me As a Minimalist

Posted on March 17, 2022

A very minimalist space, a lounge room that is light and bright with minimal furniture.

It’s been about seven years now since I discovered my minimalist journey so I thought I would reflect back on how my habits had changed over that time and the things I used to do that now seem weird to me as a minimalist.

Of course, the habits I used to have were what many of us would consider normal, but that now seems wasteful to me, whether that be environmentally or wasteful of my time or money.

Living a minimalist lifestyle is by no means easier than not. It takes a lot of work for me to make fairly small purchases, but I know that in the end, being a more mindful consumer has added immense value to my life and for that reason, I will continue to be as intentional as I can be with my daily consumer decisions.

Of course, by no means am I perfect or encouraging anyone to give up consumption altogether. These are just the personal changes I have noticed over the past five years that may help you to add value to your own life and I hope that they do 🙂

Things I Used To Do That Now Seem Weird To Me As a Minimalist

Buying enough food for the apocalypse

When I discovered Minimalism, it soon enveloped so many other areas of my life, including my grocery shopping. I realised how wasteful I had been with shopping in the past and was constantly annoyed at how much food I would end up throwing away each week. It was horrible for the environment, wasteful in terms of being a valuable resource and a complete waste of money.

Shopping used to be guesswork for me. I’d come home from the store and realise we had bought more than we could fit in our pantry or fridge or freezer. Finding anything was stressful. And trying to cook meals when you have 4 weeks of food at the ready was not any easier.

Now when we shop we are a more well-oiled machine.

We generally shop every Sunday. Having a routine has been a huge game-changer!

We look at what we do and don’t have, so we don’t come home with excessive amounts of food we didn’t need.

We Meal Plan around our schedule for the week so we know what meals we need to buy and what we don’t and plan our shopping list accordingly.

We buy only what we need for the week ahead. This is important for two reasons, it gives us a cut-off for our shopping list. If we need something on Monday in 7 days it can wait for our next shop. It also means that we aren’t buying food that might not get eaten. Plans change, so we avoid buying food too far in advance in case our plans do change and we end up throwing the extra we bought out.

Our new shopping habits have helped us to save thousands on our grocery bill over the past few years and will continue into the future and has helped us to ensure the food we are buying, goes into our mouths and not the bin or landfill.

2. Buying clothes without much thought as to what I already had

Clothes shopping without intention is one of the things I used to do that now seems weird to me as a minimalist. Before I discovered the minimalist lifestyle, my shopping habits looked a little like this: I’d have a spare couple of hours so would proceed to the local mall and my favourite clothing stores. I would pick out some clothes I liked without really asking questions like; Do I really need this? Is this me? How much of my clothing budget do I have left to spend? Do I have something similar at home to this already?

If the change room line was too long, there was no way I was going to be bothered to wait so I’d just walk away and leave the store…

Jokes! Almost had you there. I would just buy the item telling myself if it doesn’t fit I would return it. Whilst standing in line to pay, I would notice some tops on sale and again, grab some without thinking, justifying it as they were only $10 each, how could I resist?!

I would then come home and realise that I already had 4 stripey shirts that looked just like the one I grabbed at the counter. And that the other item I bought didn’t fit. Sometimes I’d been in such a rush I took the wrong size home. WTF was I doing?? Basically if it fit into my colour scheme of black, white or purple it was coming home with me.

These clothes were then shoved in the bottom of a drawer or back of my wardrobe, never to be looked at again. They had served their purpose – fulfilling my desire to shop, providing me with a moment of entertainment and that rush of nabbing a bargain. But the reality of this scenario wasn’t so simple.

The truth was that I had a wardrobe full of clothes that were ‘not me’.

I owned two pairs of stilettos even though I hate heels, let alone ones I can’t walk in.

I had clothes still with tags on them.

I owned 50 dresses even though 95% of the time I prefer to wear pants or shorts.

My drawers were so packed that closing them was a physical challenge.

I truly had no idea what I even owned. My wardrobe did not represent me.

When I learned about the minimalist lifestyle, I came across the term ‘capsule wardrobe‘ which was an absolute game-changer for me.

I realised that I didn’t need to own 50 of each individual type of clothing and finally understood that the issue with my wardrobe was not a lack of clothing, but that I had too much.

I soon decluttered over 50% of my wardrobe and created a new capsule wardrobe for every season during the year. I now only shop for gap pieces for my wardrobe and know what I need to buy before I even leave my house.

This has made getting ready each day such a breeze, knowing exactly what I own, and that most pieces can be mixed and matched. It has reduced my stress and anxiety. I now love opening my drawers and wardrobe and seeing space. And it has saved me so much money as I used to shop very frequently.

3. Buying shoes in quantity, not quality

In my non-minimalist days, I used to love a good shoe sale. Unfortunately for me, Kmart shoes were basically always on sale, even when they were full-priced because they were so cheap to begin with. And so I would often venture to Kmart and come home with a new pair of shoes. My specialty was buying more flats, and heels that I would never wear (As I mentioned, I actually hate wearing heels – go figure!).

At my worst, when I started my Decluttering Journey I counted 56 pairs of shoes! And that might not seem like a lot for some of your out there, but it was for me.

I remember I used to go shopping with friends and stand outside of the shoe store waiting when they stayed for longer than I had liked as I just found it so boring. My shoes were all over the house. I have some at the front door floor, some in the drawer at our entryway. Some were in our wardrobe and then I had to buy another set of drawers that were in the spare room to store the rest. It was just a disorganised mess.

The silly thing was, that although I often bought shoes, I was never really that much of a shoe person. I was just doing what I had always done and hadn’t caught onto how I was wasting my valuable time and money.

Every time I went out, I’d feel overwhelmed when trying to select from my 50 odd pairs of shoes. Soon I would have a pile strewn across my floor and 9 out of 10 times I would always end up wearing the same select few. Who knew $8 shoes weren’t that comfy? (Apparently me!)

Eventually, I realised how much stress my huge shoe collection was adding to my life.

In my first decluttering session, I got my shoes down from 56 to just 19 pairs. Almost 1/3rd of my original shoe collection. And I quickly realised that I didn’t miss any of them. To my surprise, getting ready became so much easier than ever before.

Over time I changed my shoe shopping habits and stopped buying the cheapest shoes, and instead opted for quality over quantity. Instead of buying 10 new pairs of flats over the year at $10 a pop and not wearing any because they were practically made of cardboard, I would spend $100 on one pair of quality, comfortable flats that I loved.

I can’t tell you how much this simplified getting ready day-to-day!

Since making the change I have never gone back and am pleased to say my shoe collection has never surpassed that initial 19 number! And funnily, now I actually get annoyed when shopping for shoes and only cheap options are available! Quite the transformation ‘;)

4. Think spending money on anything other than physical things was a waste of money

I was raised in a house that didn’t value experiences over things. I had multiple hoarders in my family (love them all but wasn’t the best environment to learn about letting go) and the message to me growing up, that might not have been said in such words but that I picked up on, was that physical things are more valuable than experiences.

And without knowing why at the time, this never really sat right with me. I would consume things like the next person (see shoe shopping habits above ;)), but I also often struggled to spend my money.

Having a January birthday meant that I was bombarded once a year with gift money that I often struggled to spend. Each time I would spend a small amount and wonder why I couldn’t find enough to buy and then throw the rest into my savings.

It took me until my mid-20s to realise that it was okay to not have to buy something you can physically hold onto. I believed from those around me that travel and similar experiences were a waste of money or something out of reach for people like me. It took me until my mid-20s to realise that this wasn’t the case.

When I thought more about it, I realised that I wanted to experience new things. The fact that I didn’t have the newest phone or a trendy wardrobe was okay by me.

I went on my first overseas holiday at 25 to Thailand and have never looked back. Since, we have traveled all over Europe, to New Zealand, Hawaii, and around Australia with more travel planned in the future!

And you know what I discovered when I implemented a new goal to shop more intentionally? I had more money to spend on things that really added value such as travel.

I also spend on services that add value to my life including a gym membership, Spotify, Netflix, and Audible subscriptions.

I may not own a library of books, the latest makeup, designer clothes or live in a McMansion with expensive furniture, but I am living the right life for me and one that aligns with my values.

Spending all my money on physical things was one of the things I used to do that now seems weird to me as a minimalist.

5. Make a big spending decision without researching it thoroughly before buying

We are so lucky that there are so many resources at our fingertips to make more informed purchasing decisions. We have websites completely dedicated to customer reviews of products and companies, YouTube reviews, price comparison websites, and a vast array of info to help us with knowing what is worth our money.

In the past, I would walk into a store and pick an item based on what was written on the in-store ticket and what advice the salesperson could give me. Now, going to the store or purchasing the item online is the last step in the process of consuming. Sometimes I even omit it and just buy online because why leave your home whenyou don’t have to, right?!

I now rarely spend money without researching an item reasonably thoroughly beforehand. I can’t tell you how many reviews I have read just to purchase my microwave and a new mattress.

And by no means is it an enjoyable process. Buying stuff for me is now a chore, but I don’t mind that as it means that if I do buy something, I better really damn well want or need it in order to put in the work to get it (I’ve come a long way from my clothes shopping days :p).

I’ve made my fair share of bad purchasing decisions in the past, and now know that putting in the effort at the start such as reading reviews, asking family and friends for recommendations and price comparisons pays off and means that hopefully, I can keep the item I am purchasing for the long hall.

Buying things without researching them for at least a few weeks in advance is one of the things I used to do that now seems weird to me as a minimalist. I work hard for my money, and there are many things I can do with it: travel, save it, invest it, pay down my mortgage, help others, or work less so I am not keen on splashing it around without doing some thorough research first.

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!

6. Shopping for entertainment

Before my Minimalism journey shopping was a pastime for me and one of the things I used to do that now seems weird to me as a minimalist. Every Thursday night was Late Night Shopping night when the stores stayed open after 5.30pm so I could go and shop after work.

Weekends were also time for shopping so on a Saturday or Sunday, more often than not I would head to my local shopping mall to browse. And you better believe it, when I had my lunch break at work, most days, I too would head to the local shopping centre to browse the stores.

And then there was shopping with friends or my husband. Why go out for a lovely meal when you can go and shop together?

It was a habit I had developed from a young age. As I mentioned above, my family wasn’t huge on experiences so every weekend we would find ourselves at the shops. And once I was an adult, I didn’t really know any different so for a long while I carried this habit on. This now is one of the things I used to do that now seems weird to me as a minimalist.

My main weakness used to be clothing stores. I just couldn’t get enough clothing, even though in reality I hated trying things on and waiting in line for change rooms.

This all seems completely alien to me now, and I have done a complete 180.

My shopping habits now look a little more like this.

I might go to the shops once a week or fortnight on my lunch break, generally only if I need to. Often I will go just to get lunch and then go straight back to my car. On weekends I do everything I can to avoid shopping. If you see me at the shops on the weekend it is because I really need something.

If I do need to hit the shops for any reason, I’ve usually built up a list over time so I only have to go once that month, rather than multiple times. Where possible, I will build up a list of things I need to buy and buy them in one go online so I don’t even need to leave the house and can save on shipping. Oh the Joy!

I also use my budget to help set spending limits.

Now instead of shopping for entertainment, I do things that add more value to my life.

I’ll go an have a meal at a cafe with my husband, or spend time with my nephews. I’ll learn a new song on bass or write a blog post for this very blog. I’ll create a new organisational product or financial tool to help people I’ll catch up on a favourite show or watch a new vid of my favourite YouTuber. Shopping is no longer a hobby for me or entertainment and changing the way I shopped has made a world of difference to my life and given me so much time back.

7. Valuing money over my time

Having more money is a good thing and can go a long way to creating a financially secure future and paying down debt but there comes a point when time is more important than more money, and I got to this point about seven years ago.

When I started working my full-time job as an Accountant, I kept the casual position I had during my Uni studies at Coles and worked a 5-hour shift on check outs almost every Sunday night.

I worked two jobs for five years! And the silly thing was, I didn’t even need that extra money, I just convinced myself that more money was more important than allowing myself to rest! Why would I rest when I could earn money??

Somehow I justified the time I spend at my second job. I did enjoy my job for the most part. I worked on Checkouts at Coles, and enjoyed the people I worked with at night and talking to the customers. And I didn’t mind the penalty rates either. But I was giving up a lot for that.

Every Sunday I would have to rush home from wherever I was to get home in time to leave for work.

It meant that instead of getting two full days of rest from work, I only got 1.5.

It meant that I subconsciously said no to planning things on one day of my weekend as I knew I had work at 5 or 6pm.

It meant that I often missed out on events that happened on Sunday nights which always sucked the most.

It meant I didn’t have the mental energy or time to do things I needed to do like exercise, meal plan or just relax.

Finally, after years of losing half my Sunday to working my second job, I realised that the money didn’t mean as much to me as my time.

Quitting my second job gave me six hours of my week back (Including travel time and getting ready!) and I finally realised how precious every one of those hours was to me.

And it wasn’t just the work hours I gained. It was the 40-minute return drive, that seemed to take longer and longer with continuous road works, speed limit reductions or just hitting every red light. It was getting ready for work, which might have only taken ten minutes but was still in addition to everything else. It was the getting home at 11pm and knowing I had work the next day and not being able to unwind and get a good night’s rest.

I didn’t regret giving up that job and the income for one second. Sure I missed the job and seeing my friends at work regularly, but what I gained was much more important to me.

This was such a huge lesson to me in my 20s and something I haven’t forgotten. I now place greater value on my time, rather than just what money can give me. Chasing money for the sake of it and the things I could buy was one of the things I used to do that now seem weird to me as a minimalist.

I completely understand that some people have no choice but to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, but a lot of us work multiple jobs or additional hours, just to consume more and more and I would advocate doing a budget, paying down debt and spending more intentionally can eliminate some of those additional hours and give you back some of your precious time.

8. Spending My Money Without Intention

As you can see from the above points, in the past I didn’t spend my money with intention which seems so weird to me as a minimalist.

I shopped for entertainment and out of boredom.

I chose to work more hours than I needed to just to keep up with unintentional spending.

I bought things and tried to justify them with how hard I worked even if I didn’t really want them and would have preferred the free time.

I now spend my money much more intentionally and in line with my values.

I spend on things that add value to my life like vitamins, my gym membership, and quality shoes. And I don’t spend on things that don’t add value to my life.

Spending money with intention freed up a lot of money in our budget which allowed us to pay off $40,000 in student loans and pay down our mortgage much faster. We were able to make huge strides in our finances without feeling like we missed out on any of the good stuff. And the most amazing thing is. the savings we’ve made by spending our money with intention are compounding year after year!

What did you use to do that now seems weird to you or super wasteful? Please let me know in the comments! 🙂

Photo by Breather on Unsplash

Minimalism

10 Benefits of a Minimalist Inspired Life

Posted on December 24, 2021

When I first discovered the ‘minimalist lifestyle’ five years ago now, I was keen to learn everything I could about this idea of living a more meaningful life. After reading everything I could possibly find on the subject, I started making small gradual changes and found very quickly that this was having a positive effect on many areas of my life.

By reflecting on what my experiences were on this minimalism path and the benefits I experienced I hope it might help inspire others to discover the benefits of living a more intentional life. Keep in mind that there are no set rules for minimalism. My version of minimalism will be different from your version and so on. It is different for everyone but is a useful tool to help you create a more intentional and meaningful life.

Here are 10 Benefits of a Minimalist Inspired Life that I have found over my journey.

10 Benefits of a Minimalist Inspired Life

You’ll Feel Less Stressed

A minimalist-inspired lifestyle has helped me to feel the least stressed I have felt in a long time.

Minimalism is all about living a more meaningful life and in turn, empowers you to be more comfortable saying no to things that you don’t enjoy and yes to the things you do enjoy.

It will allow you to reassess the relationships in your life, which could entail leaving a bad relationship or setting new boundaries with a friend or family member to ensure those close relationships aren’t detrimental to your well-being. It might give you the courage to leave a job that is negatively impacting your health or consuming all your time.

By identifying your core values, and understanding what is most important to you and your happiness, you can reduce stress when you eliminate non-essential things, such as going out more than you want to or working more hours than you might need to.

You’ll Have More Free Time

On your minimalism journey, you will start to identify which aspects of life bring you joy and which don’t. Once you start saying no to things that don’t bring you joy, you can start freeing up more time to say yes to things that do.

I managed to swap out a lot of activities that didn’t add any value to my life for ones that did. For example, I watched TV less so I had more time to exercise. I only bought things I needed so I didn’t waste my weekend shopping for things that added no value to my life. And I chose the people I spent my time with more selectively. These small changes freed up time I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

You’ll Have More Spare Cash

Adopting a minimalist inspired lifestyle frees up money to spend on things that are truly adding value to your life.

Consider this example. Removing the excess in your home means you might reduce the need for a larger home now that you have fewer things to store in it. If you reassess what you actually use you might find that you don’t need a big two-story house after all. This awareness could give you the opportunity to:

Downsize your home saving you money on your rent or mortgage
Allow you to potentially work less hours as your smaller home takes up less of your paycheck and frees up money for other things you love
A smaller home costs less to heat, cool and clean again saving you more money

Removing the excess in your life can free up cash in your budget that can go to things that you didn’t think you could afford before, such as taking up a new hobby you have always wanted to or enabling you to see more of the world.

Shows You Experiences > Things

Minimalism has helped me to realise the joy of experiences over material possessions. Buying material possessions may bring a temporary increase in happiness, but that disappears over time once we adapt to having that item. Having that item, and the temporary dopamine effect it gives wears off much quicker than experiences.

When you prioritise experiences over material possessions it provides you with joy that no physical purchase can really come close to, particularly if that experience is shared with someone.

My husband and I often talk about all the trips to different countries we have done or gigs we have gone to and it brings us so much happiness to think back on these occasions! I can’t say that talking about an outfit I bought years ago or an eyeshadow pallet does the same. I grew up in a family that didn’t prioritise experience over things and it took me until my mid-20s to change my mindset around this and realise how much experiences added to my life.

These experiences give us memories that we can talk about for years to come with loved ones. Although they may not provide us with a physical thing to place in our homes, the memories are with us for life.

For more ideas on giving more intentional gifts check out 10 Minimalist Gift Ideas that Add Value, Not Stuff!

You’ll Get to Live Your Life For You, Not Others

There is so much pressure placed on everyone to have an impressive-sounding career, the newest car, biggest home, and the focus has shifted away from what makes us happy to what we can do to impress others.

A minimalist-inspired lifestyle helps us to shift the focus, from being defined by others’ expectations helping us put our needs first. If it is important to you to be debt-free and drive a reliable, affordable car instead of a new more impressive vehicle do that. If it is more important to you to have more free time to follow other passions than having a high-stress managerial position with long hours, go for it!

When we spend less time worrying about what other people’s expectations are of us we can focus on living a more meaningful life and being true to ourselves. Stop listening to what others expect your life or lifestyle to look like and start living the lifestyle YOU want.

You’ll Focus More on Your Health

Minimalism helps you to prioritise the essential things in life, one of the most important being your health.

It can be easy to get caught up in day-to-day life. There are bills, chores, work, and so on. Over the long term, your health is going to suffer if your well-being takes a backseat to those other priorities.

Minimalism can help redirect your focus away from what you might be spending your time on, to your detriment, to more productive and positive habits. These changes will feel like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders, a weight you might not have even realised was there.

You might pay off your debt and reduce your stress and anxiety around your finances. You might realise that you don’t need a six-figure salary and the stress that comes with working 80 hours and choose to downsize your workload. You might try and minimize habits that don’t add much value, like scrolling on Tik Tok or watching too many hours of TV and replace them with ones that do add value, like exercising more.

You’ll Be More Intentional In All Areas of Your Life

When you clear the excess clutter and get down to what truly adds value to you, you’ll start applying the minimalist-inspired lifestyle to other aspects of your life – not just the stuff.

You might find yourself asking: Does this house bring me joy or does it just take up my spare time cleaning it? Am I really that passionate about this degree or career? Could I have my dream job if I could take a pay cut? Do I want to be in debt for the next 30 years?

Minimalism seeps into all areas of life and can open you up to a new way of thinking about all areas of your life. It helps us to regularly reassess where we are in life and over time, trains us to apply our thinking of small decisions such as do I need this kitchen gadget to the bigger decisions that have a larger impact on our life.

You’ll Have to Make Fewer Decisions

Making decisions takes more brainpower than you may realize. Every time you make a decision on something you are using up mental energy.

When you think about your day and what decisions you have to make: what to have for breakfast, what to wear today, what watch to wear, what bag will you grab, what route will you take to work, what will you have for dinner and so on – it’s no wonder we are at decision overload and have little attention span left to do much else with our time. For me the worst part is standing in the shopping aisle trying to pick one item from a section of 20. It all gets a bit much!

Minimalism helps us find ways to reduce everyday decision making which takes mental energy away from more valuable uses of energy and creativity. This frees up mental energy to do more value-adding activities like writing that book you’ve always wanted to or learning a new language. It’s why people like Steve Jobs and Matt D’Avella wear the same outfit every day!

Here are a few ideas to get you started to help minimize your decision-making overload.

Create a capsule wardrobe like Courtney Carver’s Project 333 as a curated selection of your favourite clothing, shoes and accessories that can be mixed and matched and save decision overload.

Meal planning once a week can save you time each day thinking about what to cook and save you from having to hit the grocery store with its 20 options for each item.

Life can be simplified so much more by limiting everyday decisions so we can focus on more important things.

You’ll Spend Less Time Cleaning

Nothing has sped up the cleaning process in my home like adopting a minimalist-inspired lifestyle has. Less is definitely more here.

Clearing the excess from your home allows you to spend less time cleaning it. Fewer things on the floor make for quicker vacuuming and mopping. Limited stuff on the countertops and tabletops allows you to use those surfaces for what they are intended and makes them much easier to keep tidy. Less decor saves you on dusting extra stuff. You get the idea.

I now see things in stores I am tempted to buy and ask myself – would I be willing to dust that? The answer is no 99% of the time!

A minimalist-inspired lifestyle has allowed me to have a more intentional wardrobe, which has made it so much easier to get on top of our laundry instead of attempting to try and tackle baskets of unwashed clothing, we now have manageable loads.

And with all the money I saved from spending with intention, I invested in a robovac that vacuums and mops my house for me!

You Are More Appreciative

After realising how much I don’t need to be happy I’ve developed a greater appreciation for what I do have.

I don’t feel the need to have the best of everything and am so grateful that I have the knowledge at this age of how important experiences and relationships are over things. Minimalism has helped me to acknowledge the small joys in every day, whether that be time spent with a close friend, a walk-in nature, or a lovely home-cooked meal. The emphasis is not on what you buy or accomplish to impress others but on what truly makes you happy.

I am excited to see where minimalism and intentional living take me in the future and hope to see even more benefits over time.

Do You Want to Learn How to Spend Your Money With Intention?

If you want to take control of your financial future, stop stressing about money, and learn how to spend your money with intention, book in for your 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 Minimise With Me Financial Coaching services here.

If you have adopted a minimalist inspired lifestyle comment below with what benefits you have found and how minimalism has helped you.

Minimalism

8 Ways Decluttering Helped Me to Live a More Intentional Life

Posted on September 24, 2019

Declutter your home and live a more intentional life today

Before I started my decluttering journey I had no idea how much my stuff was holding me back. I wasn’t aware of the daily struggle clutter bought with it or how it added to my stress and anxiety.

When I decluttered my first set of drawers that contained my shirts and shorts, I was amazed at the difference this one small change made to me. It seems silly that such a small change – decluttering two drawers, had any impact on my life but it did and that positive change grew exponentially from there with each decluttering project I tackled.

Decluttering benefited me in many areas of my life that I couldn’t have ever expected. Here are 8 Ways Decluttering Helped Me to Live a More Intentional Life.

8 Ways Decluttering Helped Me to Live a More Intentional Life.

1. Decluttering highlighted my impulsive consumer habits

Very early on in my decluttering journey, I became aware of numerous impulsive consumer habits I had picked up over the years. My wardrobe and bathroom were hard evidence of these less than desirable shopping habits. As I decluttered my bathroom, I saw lip balm collections, a foundation for every day of the week, and hand lotion bottles galore.

I didn’t have what I needed – the essentials, or even just a little more in case I ran out before I could get to the shops. I was apparently preparing stockpiles for the shops to close for a good year based on my collections

As I decluttered each item: shampoos, conditioners, hair products, makeup, and the like, I realised that I really didn’t need all those excess items and over time implemented new consumer habits to limit what I was bringing into my home.

2. Decluttering helped me appreciate experiences over things

Before I decluttered my home and cleared the excess, I was your average shopper. Most likely addicted and spending mindlessly on things I didn’t need.

I’d wander on my lunch breaks shopping for nothing in particular, spending my hard-earned paycheck.

Buy things just because they were on sale, even if I had no idea what I would do with them when I got home.

Waste my weekends in the mall buying things I didn’t need instead of doing things that added value to me.

Decluttering helped me lead a more intentional life as I slowly saw the value in experiences over things. After clearing over half my wardrobe, a buy one get one free sale sign lost its pull over me. I slowly started replacing my habits of buying things on impulse and instead learned to appreciate experiences. Experiences I could remember, and think back on with fondness, that didn’t require me to take some item into my home where I would have to find a place to store it, dust, and maintain it.

Over time I saw myself spending less money at the mall. Instead, I spent my money on experiences that I could enjoy and share with others, like going to the movies, a concert, or travelling. I noticed later in the year I’d long forgotten the new jewellery and perfume I got for Christmas, but years later remembered my first trip to New Zealand for my 30th with fondness and my honeymoon to Europe. I realised that when I invested my time and money into experiences and things I truly enjoyed, I didn’t need to go and shop to fill some void.

Declutter With Me Decluttering Course

Are you finding yourself overwhelmed and stressed out by clutter in your home?

If you’re looking to minimise the excess in your life, Declutter With Me: A 12 Week Guide to Declutter Your Home is a go-at-your-own-pace course that will give you the step-by-step, room-by-room instructions to help you clear the clutter in your home in as soon as just 12 weeks!

But clearing the clutter isn’t just about getting rid of your excess stuff. It’s important to change your behaviour and consumer habits so you can avoid re-cluttering your space once you have decluttered. Included in Declutter With Me, are “Keep It Minimal” tips for each area in your home + 7 Tips To Help You Keep Your Home Minimal, to give you strategies you can implement to help you spend with intention so you can avoid bringing clutter back into your home.

If you are keen to minimise your unwanted clutter check out Declutter With Me so you can create a home you love!

learn more

3. Decluttering helped me be more mindful of gifts I gave to others

As I decluttered my home, I noticed a lot of gifts, that were bought with generosity and good intentions from family and friends had gone unused or weren’t adding value to us anymore. This made me reconsider my own gift-giving habits and be more intentional with what I gifted others. I stopped my usual gift buying habit of heading to the shop and browsing for the perfect gift, realising that the perfect gift isn’t always going to be found on a shelf at the mall.

I started to get more creative with my gifts. Some new habits I’ve implemented:

Buying experience gifts such a a massage, tickets to a concert, musical or kids attraction
Asking people directly what they would like for a gift
Taking a loved one out for a meal or experience
Making a contribution to a loved one’s travel savings fund
Performing or recording a song for a loved one
Gifting gift cards to their favourite store

If I know someone needs something for their home or wants something specifically I am more than happy to go out and get that item for them, but the shops are now something I only step into with intention when it comes to buying gifts

4. Decluttering made me more intentional with my time

After decluttering my home, I knew that I would never, ever, let my home get into the cluttered state that it was ever again. I wasn’t prepared to make all that decluttering progress just to go back into old clutter-accumulation habits. I was done.

Decluttering also made me see how unintentional I had been with my time.

Whether that be the time I spent looking for things around the house that had been misplaced, the time I spent trying to keep up with an overflowing wardrobe and the laundry that ensued, and the time I had spent shopping for things only to cluttering up my home that took up my very limited and valuable time.

I realised how I had used shopping as a hobby rather than a tool to buy things I needed as I needed them. As I decluttered the excess in my home I chose to utilise my time going forward more intentionally. Instead of shopping every week or on my break by default, I built up a list over time and only went to the shops once a month and made one trip. This saved me battling traffic and car spaces on multiple trips and meant I could free up some time to do things that actually added value to me.

5. Decluttering made me more intentional with my money

After decluttering over 70% of our belongings, I was faced with the realisation of how much money I had thrown away over the years on stuff I didn’t need. I added up in my head the dollars each time I donated an item of clothing that still had the tags on or the art project or book I had never gotten around to. It was certainly an eye-opening experience and made me think long and hard each day that I tackled my clutter about how I could start being more intentional with my money.

Decluttering my home helped me to see the wasted money. I refused to continue to waste my money on impulse purchases that I didn’t need any longer, I had wasted enough. I wasted money on clothes that didn’t fit or suit me because I was too lazy to try them on. There was wasted money on shoes I bought that were not something I would ever wear, I just liked the idea of them. There was waste when I bought more makeup than I could possibly use up before it expired.

When I decided to spend more intentionally, it had a huge positive impact on our finances. We were less stressed about money, we had more money to pay down debt and work towards our financial goals, and could justify spending money guilt-free on things like an overseas trip.

It wasn’t my expectation when I started my decluttering journey to save money but was a hugely welcome side effect!

6. Decluttering made me more mindful in other areas of my life

When you eliminate the excess in your home, it’s bound to make you more mindful of other aspects of your life. It is not uncommon to declutter your home and decide to move houses, get a new job, or end a toxic friendship. Decluttering makes you assess everything you bring into your home and soon you will apply those same tools and skills to other aspects of your life.

The Minimalists talk about how they decluttered their homes and soon after, changed their spending habits, left their corporate jobs to start their own blog and both moved homes. Like The Minimalists experiences, decluttering helped me realise what did and didn’t add value to my life.

As I previously mentioned, I realised that shopping regularly did not add value to my life, so I reduced how often I spent shopping and built a list to get in one go. It helped me to reassess relationships and made me more appreciative of the friends and family that made an effort to be in our lives. It helped me realise what was and wasn’t important to me and gave me permission to let go of things like the hoard of books I’d hoped to get to and instead put my time and energy into things I was truly passionate about, such as this very blog

7. Decluttering made us more content with what we had

Decluttering helped us see that we didn’t need much to be happy. We have now been in our fairly modest-sized home for 8 years and a bigger home hasn’t been on our agenda for some time now, and we don’t see the need to upsize our home when now that we just keep the things we truly enjoy and use.

We still have the same TV we bought 8 years ago when we moved in, the same Fridge and Dishwasher and most of the same instruments

We try to make do with what we have and use up what we have before we buy more. I keep limited stocks of makeup and hair products, I’ve just bought my first new sneakers in 5 years and shock horror I buy one book at a time to read.

I don’t miss the days of duplicated nail polish, too many books to read, and the guilt that comes with that and having enough eyeshadow to commission an artwork. We try to be content with what we have rather than constantly chasing what others tell us we need.

8. Decluttering helped me to realise that it is okay to let things go

As a former hoarder, and a girl who was surrounded by many other hoarders growing up and probably picked up a few bad habits along the way, I completely get that it is hard to let go of things. I was so worried when I let things go that I would regret them and curse the day I started decluttering my home.

But to be completely honest with you. That hasn’t happened once.

I found ways to ease my inner hoarder such as taking photos of sentimental items before disposing of them and asking myself questions like ‘would I buy this again today?’ which helped me part with the excess in my home again and again. And most things that I thought I might need Just in Case, I knew I could apply The Minimalists 20/20 Rule and get them at the shop if there ever really came a time when I needed that item again.

And letting go of the excess came with so many benefits that outweigh any need to hold onto things. You’ll have more space to enjoy your home, homes are meant for living not storage. You have the ability to find and display the things that do add value to you, such as your favourite books not being covered by ones you’ll probably never read and the freedom of knowing that if you ever wanted to move, change careers, cities, or anything else, you won’t be burdened by all your clutter holding you back.

[Photo by: Samantha Gades on Unsplash.com]

What’s your biggest decluttering struggle? Let me know in the comments!

Budgeting

How to Use the Envelope Budgeting Method

Posted on August 26, 2019

Budgeting Envelopes are a great tool to help you stick to your budget

The Envelope Budgeting Method is a great tool to help you with your Zero Based Budget to stay within your budget. It’s an easy method to track your spending in by category and to keep you informed of when you’ve spent your budgeted amount for a particular expense. If you are struggling to stick to your budget and finding trying to budget blind isn’t working for you, the Envelope Budgeting Method is a great way to give you some control and a birds eye view of your budget expenditure.

Cash Budgeting Envelopes

Generally the Envelope Budgeting Method uses cash that is divided up and placed into separate envelopes with an expense tracker on front of the envelope to tally up your spending as you go. Each time you spend money you would take the cash out of the envelope for the appropriate category, for example, if you were buying groceries you would take cash out of the grocery envelope, you would then note the following on the front of your Grocery Envelope:

Date
Store
Description and
Amount

You would then calculate what budget you had left over, by subtracting your total budget for the month from what you just spent and entering that amount in the Balance column. You would place your receipt inside the envelope.

I would avoid using cash envelopes to hold large amounts of money i.e. If you are using cash envelopes to save up for your annual Insurance or Car Expenses which might involve leaving hundreds of dollars around the house. For these, I would use a completely separate account for your Sinking Funds where you can put away for larger, ongoing expenses.

Digital Budgeting Envelopes

I have hacked the Envelope Budgeting Method which usually involves a cash envelope system after giving it a go for a handful of months and created a Digital Budgeting Envelopes which I found suited me more. It is essentially the same concept except it eliminates the need to carry around lots of cash and physical envelopes in your bag. It also eliminates the issue with couples not having access to the envelope when the other partner has it.

To use the Digital Budgeting Envelope you can track your expenditure in the digital envelope file via your Google sheets which you can access from your phone at any time and share with your partner so you can both access and update the same file in real-time.

Again, if you spend money here you would note the Date, Store, Description and the Amount but this time the final balance will calculate for you in the Balance Column.

The Digital Budgeting Envelopes also don’t require you to physically set up the envelopes every month, you simply duplicate the worksheet and just change the month.

Setting up your Envelopes

Cash Envelopes: If you are using the Envelope Budgeting Method with Cash Envelopes you can simply withdraw your cash from your bank account and put the cash into the envelope. Fill in the Category, Month, and Budgeted amount, print off your Envelopes and glue them onto your envelope (110x220mm).

Digital Envelopes: The best way to track your digital envelopes is to set up an account that will be used exclusively for your envelopes budget. For example, if you have 5 envelopes that you want to track and that total budget is $1000 for the month you would transfer $1000 each month to an account exclusively for your envelopes. If your envelopes start on the 1st of the month on the 1st you would deposit your $1000 amount and ideally have at least $1 remaining by the 30th or 31st to show that you are in budget.

What to do with Unspent Budgeted Amounts?

At the end of the month with the Envelope Budgeting Method for both the Cash & Digital Envelopes, the final balance of each Budget Category will be totaled so you can see what is left.

For example, if your monthly grocery budget is $400 and you’ve only spent $360 this month, you could either transfer the $40 to your savings or use it to pay off debt if you have debt, or you can carry that amount across to your next months envelope. So with the cash envelopes you would move the physical $40 into your new envelope for the next month and with your digital envelopes you could just add in a line at the top of your grocery list and just adding carry over from prior month and then adding a -40 and that will add to your total budget so the following month you would actually have $440.

With the cash envelope you would deposit your $40 into your account and move it to your savings or pay it onto Debt. Or you could add the $40 cash into your next month’s envelope, it is totally up to you. If you want to take advantage of being under budget, by all means, put it to good use and save it or put it towards paying off your debt!

With the digital envelope you would simply transfer the money from your envelope bank account to your savings or pay it onto your debt. Alternatively, leave the cash in the account which would carry over to the following months envelope.

Don’t forget to note the movement on your envelopes if you carry the cash over from prior month by adding a $40 into your prior month to show that money is allocated and adding a -$40 into the new months envelope to show that amount has been added to your new months budget for that category. So in this example the following month you would actually have $440 for your groceries budget category.

What if I am Over Budget in a Category?

It’s important to avoid borrowing money from the following month’s envelopes if you are over budget, this is a slippery slope and will become a bad habit you might never catch up with. Instead, borrow within the same month from other categories. In the above example, if you had $40 leftover in your Grocery fund and you wanted to buy some take out later in the month but had used all all your take out budget, you could carry that amount across to your Entertainment Budget. To do so you would add in a line in the Grocery Category: e.g. “Transfer to Entertainment” $40 and in the Entertainment envelope you would add in “Transfer from Groceries” -$40. Make sure to take the money out you enter the amount as a positive and to add it into the other category you pick it up as a negative! Double-check your balance to the right of the entry to make sure you picked up the transfer correctly!

Categories of Budgeting Envelopes

Budgeting envelopes are mainly designed to help you to control your spending in problem spending categories, those categories that aren’t always so easy to stay in budget. For example, you’re probably not going to go nuts buying excess petrol and your electricity bill might increase of decrease with the change of seasons but isn’t really going to blow out in a spending spree. But your clothing budget might and you might easily spend $800 on your groceries instead of the $400 you budgeted, so with the budget envelopes, we want to focus on the more fluctuating expense categories.

The idea is not to have 30 separate envelopes which will be too tedious and for little benefit, the goal is to stick to the main problem spending areas in your budget.

These might be:

Groceries
Miscellaneous Spending
Home Repairs
Concerts
Entertainment
Clothing
Kids Expenses
Alcohol
Beauty

or any other categories relevant to your budget.

Filling in Your Budgeting Envelopes

It does take some getting used to and get into a habit of writing down what you spent as you go and it can sometimes be a nuisance writing down what you’ve spent when you’re trying to battle kids and a grocery trolley through the car park, but there are ways to make the budgeting envelopes work for you. We want to make budgeting work around you, not be onerous and too difficult to maintain!

I came up with a slightly more flexible system that worked for myself with the envelopes. As I spent money, I would stick the receipt in my bag as I exited the grocery store or left the drive-through and then once I got home and unpacked everything, or had a moment spare, I’d then go and grab my receipt and fill in my envelope and record the expenditure.

Another method for people that don’t want to just fill in their envelopes 24/7 is to fill out your envelopes in smaller chunks. To do this I have a small plastic wallet in my handbag where I collate all receipts and once or twice a week I will go through those receipts and add them into my digital budget envelope or cash envelope. I will tick the top of the receipt on any that I have picked up and will also scan the receipt and save it in my Google Drive if it’s a receipt I want to keep a digital record of. Otherwise once I have picked up a receipt if it is for something I don’t need to keep I will just shred or recycle it once I have recorded the expense.

I do recommend when you first start your budgeting envelopes that you do fill them in frequently as you go, rather than chunk as you will be getting to know your budget and your budget limits and it will take a few months to get used to that and if you don’t update them as you spend you might find that you do go over budget, so until you feel confident of your budget, do update your envelopes as you go. Of course, if updating it as you go is your preference then just stick with that.

Storing your Envelopes & Receipts

With the digital budgeting envelopes I would suggest you keep one file for each year. Start a new one at the start of a new year, so you can choose whether you start that in January or July whether you want calendar or financial year. Set up your Google Drive folders or equivalent by expense category e.g. Clothing, Home Repairs, Warranty and so on so you can easily find your scanned receipts when you need them.

With your cash envelopes they will build up over time so I would suggest once every three months you take a photo of the front of any older envelopes for reference and recycle them. Then scan what receipts you wan to keep copies of, e.g. for returns, warranties, or for insurance purposes and shred or recycle the other ones you don’t need to keep like groceries, beauty expenses, etc.

And there you have it how to use envelopes for your budget. And to get you started I have a Cash Budgeting Envelope Printable and a Digital Budgeting Envelope in my store which you can check out. These come with detailed instructions for how to set up your cash or digital envelopes.

Do You Want to Learn How to Spend Your Money With Intention?

If you want to take control of your financial future, stop stressing about money and learn how to spend your money with intention, book in for your 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 Minimise With Me Financial Coaching services here.

This week’s comment question: Have you ever used budgeting envelopes? Did you find they helped you to stay on budget? Let me know in the comments below!

Minimalism

My Zero Waste Journey: A Beginner’s Guide to Zero Waste Living

Posted on July 29, 2018

**This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase of a product from the links in this post I will receive a small commission, at no cost to you. This allows me to keep my blog advertisement free and support the running costs of my blog. I only recommend products I believe will add value to others and that I love myself.**

Since discovering Minimalism and trying to lead a more intentional life, I become pretty interested in reducing my environmental footprint. Through my research I stumbled across a new lifestyle called Zero Waste Living. It’s something that over the past couple of years I have become quite passionate about learning as much as I can about it. I was extremely curious about what I could do to limit my impact on the environment.

After decluttering over half of our belongings I realised that our household had been contributing to unnecessary waste. I wanted to take steps to minimise this in the minimising process. And so whilst decluttering our home, I tried to thoughtfully dispose of everything. By either selling it to someone who would love it, donate it to someone in need or passing the items on to friends and family. I even went as far as keeping damaged items such as a large bag of old CDs and a broken microwave that I knew could be recycled at our local councils recycling collection event rather than letting them end up in land fill. If something could be recycled or passed on in some way, I was going to find it and do everything I could to keep it out of landfill. It just felt right. And hey, I brought all that unnecessary crap into my home, it was my responsibility to dispose of it in an intentional manner.

The passion to reduce my waste footprint grew from there after watching the first three episodes of ABC’s #waronwaste. I was amazed to see how much the families in the show had reduced their waste with a small amount of information and effort. I wanted to do the same, so I set myself a challenge to be more conscious of our waste management and recycling. After the first fortnight, we went from having a full waste bin to just a half full small shopping bag of house hold waste for the fortnight. I was amazed at how a small amount of education helped us to drastically reduce what we were sending to landfill and knew I wanted to do more.

I have since taken small steps to implement new, environmentally friendly consumption habits into my life. I’m in no way perfect, who is, but I feel like I have made some amazing progress in a small space of time. If you are as passionate about myself about doing your part for the environment and keen to learn more on ways that you can consume less, and live with more intention when it comes to your household waste habits check out this Beginners Guide to Going Zero Waste!

What is Zero Waste?
Zero Waste is all about reducing what waste we make in our household. This includes any food scraps, recyclables and general household waste. Going Zero Waste aims to recognises the environmental impact your consumption habits are having on the environment and eliminate as much of it as possible. It can be as extreme or relaxed as you want it, but every effort you make goes a long way!

Every bag you bin, unnecessary piece of paper you print, food you waste needs to be recycled in some way or disposed of in landfill. When you start to pay attention to what you are throwing out week after week it really is eye opening as to how much waste we are creating and throwing away.

How you can get started?
The best thing about going zero waste is there are so many amazing blogs and articles or videos about how you can reduce your environmental foot print. I started my ‘Zero Waste Journey’ by swapping out a few disposable items for reusable ones and getting a little crafty with how I used products in my home.

I started with just the easy stuff I could think of and recommend that for anyone wanting to adopt Zero Waste Living. You can always start with the easy stuff and add in more with trial and error as you go.

These are the things I did to begin my Zero Waste Living journey.

1. I replaced disposable beverages with a reusable alternative

We used to buy a 24 pack of water bottles once every fortnight. Just think, our bottled water use alone was contributing to 48 bottles of waste every month, not including our other drinks! We made the decision to stop buying these bottles an instead invested in a water filter jug to have at home. We got this one from Kmart and a stainless steel drink bottle which meant we no longer needed to buy those polluting bottles of water. Not only were we saving the environment but about $200 a year.

We didn’t stop there. I am not a coffee drinker so this wasn’t such a biggie for me but as soon as I discovered how many coffee cups ended up in landfill – all of them – I was shocked and alarmed. I had no idea that due to the waterproofing material in coffee cups that they were not recyclable. My husband is a two-a-day coffee kind of guy (I’m sure it’s actually more… XD) so as soon as Christmas rolled around I grabbed him a custom designed Keep Cup, a beautifully curated black and white design by yours truly. We ended up getting gifted another one from a friend (which I have adopted for my occasional white hot chocolate usage) and they are an amazing zero waste alternative. They are quality, dishwasher safe (you know you are old when that is exciting news!), keep your drink super warm (hot even!), come in a variety of shapes and sizes and stop those unrecyclable coffee cups from going into landfill. The next time you go for your morning coffee, bring yours along and give the environment one huge leg up!

2. Stopped buying single use straws
After learning what I could about the correct way to recycle, I couldn’t help but notice one of the things that we were binning still were disposable straws. According to StrawNoMore.org, 500 million straws are used every single day in the USA alone. That is a HUUUUGE number of straws for one country! The problem is they take so many resources to make, the plastic, energy, transport etc and only seconds to use, but never break down. Straws not only cause environmental disaster but are a huge problem for marine life. I once saw a straw being pulled out a turtle’s nose and that still bothers me to this day. No turtle or other animal should be harmed by our waste. Pledge to say #notothestraw today and swap your disposable ones out for one like these Ever Eco Reusable Straws which I have been using for the past year. They’re super easy to clean and don’t harm the environment. Or simply go without a straw, I promise – you will be fine 🙂

3. Switched to reusable make up pads
Another thing still in my red waste bin each week, even after recycling everything I could were my disposable make up remover pads. I’d had these on my wist list for ages and recently bought and tried my first set of Reusable Make Up Pads. I am definitely keen to keep these in my zero waste favourites list. I simply use them with moisturiser at night and soak them before throwing them in the wash. Easy! No more disposable make up pads in landfill and I have saved myself the cost of future make up remover pads!

4. Reusable pads
The hygiene line of zero waste products was something I didn’t jump on board with straight away but after a while I realised how unhealthy it was to buy chemical laden products for *ahem* ‘those areas’. Not to mention the cost month after month, year on year. I decided to give these Reusable Pads a go and found that they weren’t as bad as I had first thought.

Full warning, slight TMI coming; Despite thinking the cleaning process would be gross and unpleasant I didn’t really find it that bad at all. And periods are just something that happen, so the sooner we can get over any grossness, the sooner we can limit the chemicals near our bodies, start saving some serious cash and most importantly limit our environmental impact.

Being a finance blog I couldn’t resist mentioning the long-term cost savings of this switch. Let’s estimate the cost savings at $5 minimum a packet, this reusable option would be at least a $60 saving a year. That could be much better spent on a massage or high tea with friends (or straight to that debt – again, finance blog 😉 )!

5. I found alternatives to disposal food wrapping
Every time I was cooking I found myself extremely bothered by the waste that brought with it. Cling wrap, sandwich bags, paper towel, foil and baking paper were used once and binned, previously without a thought. But now I was much more conscious of what I was binning I couldn’t stand by and continue my unintentional waste of single-use items. Here I had a few methods to change my household waste.

– I used Bees Wax Wraps to wrap food instead of single use products. These are great for wrapping sandwiches or bread, cheese and fruit and are easily washed and reused. They also come in the cutest designs and different sizes so that was a bonus!
– I avoided using sandwich bags unless I really needed to. When it came to meat products in the freezer I was still stuck using a freezer bag (working to replace this), but where I could avoid it I would. I started to use containers as much as possible for food rather then storing them in bowls or plates with foil or cling wrap.
– A friend recommended I use and IKEA cooking mat for a baking paper replacement which has worked a treat so far. It’s sold as a preparation mat but seems to be effective for both uses.
– I started using microfibre cloths over paper towels where I could which was about 95% of the time. They can be washed and reused up to 500 times each vs a single use paper towel. The choice for me was an easy one!
– I started to implement some frugal methods to reuse what I could. I did my best at reusing sandwich bags by labelling them and using them again and again for like items. I have three in my freezer currently for spring onion, regular onions and red chillis. Rather then emptying the packet and binning them and getting a new one we can simply put them back in the freezer and reuse them when we are ready.

6. I started carrying a reusable bag with me everywhere
In Australia, there has been a growing campaign #saynotothebag and it seems to be really making it’s mark. From July 1st 2018 supermarkets have been phasing out single use plastic bags, so I have got into the habit of carrying at least one with me at all times. I cannot tell you the amount of times I have been able to turn down a plastic bag recently because I had my own with me. That alone has made a huge impact on achieving my zero waste goals. And I must admit, I am more than looking forward to not being swamped with bag after bag in my cupboards that seem to just multiply and never end.

What else can I do to achieve Zero Waste?

These were just a handful of things I have done on my Zero Waste Journey but there are many more that you can try. I recommend you start with the ones you feel most excited to try out and work your way to the others that will be a bigger transition!

Here’s another 25 Zero Waste Tips for you to try out for your home:

1. Take any soft plastics you have to the Red Cycle bins at the front of your local Coles or Woolies. They will be recycled and made into furniture and reduce your waste bin drastically. Just watch! 🙂

2. If you forget your reusable coffee cup when going out for a coffee, when possible opt to dine in instead and ask for a mug.

3. Bring your lunch to work to avoid buying food with disposable packaging.

4. Wash your kitchen sponge in the dishwasher to make them last longer. Or replace your disposable sponges with microfibre clothes that can be used 100s of times and throw them in the washing machine.

5. Bring a reusable water bottle rather than buying bottled water when you are out. This will save you lots too!

6. Shop intentionally. Don’t buy things just because you are bored. Ask these 7 questions before buying anything!

7. Start meal planning to reduce over shopping at the supermarket and only buy what you will need for the 1-2 weeks ahead. Check out this Weekly Meal Planner Printable to get you started!

9. Use paper towel sparingly for things like oil spills and icky stains and stick to reusable cloths like microfibre cloths for other spills.

10. Reuse your foil. If it is clean fold away and reuse for next time. You can also put these in the dishwasher! That blew my mind!

11. Same goes for your freezer bags. Mark them for uses e.g. Onions, Spring Onions, Chillies etc and reuse them for the same items. Of course never reuse any that are for meat.

12. Take your left overs home to eat rather then letting them go in the bin.

13. Get yourself a set of reusable bags to leave in your boot for when shopping. Do this every week and you are saving a lot of bags ending up in landfill.

14. Try to only buy what you need. If you are a household of two don’t buy plates and cups for a house of 12.

15. Don’t buy beauty products on impulse. Only replace what you need as you need it. They expire and can grow bacteria once they expire anyway 🙂

16. Consider borrowing or buying something second hand rather than replacing it with something new where possible.

17. Pay it forward if you don’t need something donate it or list it on a free cycle site. Keep it out of landfill if it is usable.

18. Repair rather than replace. Sew on a new button, take your clothing to a tailor to take it in rather than replacing it if it is still wearable.

19. Learn how to store your food correctly to extend it’s shelf life and limit what you are throwing in your bin.

20. Gift experiences over things where possible. Reduce the chances of giving someone a gift they don’t need that they will bin or clutter up their homes unnecessarily.

21. Gift consumables over things such as some home made cookies in a reusable jar.

22. Switch to eBooks and audiobooks. Reduce the clutter in your home and save the environment. Get a library card to borrow copies of books or DVDs or ask a friend if they have a copy you can borrow.

23. Watch streaming sites such as Netflix rather than buying DVDs and save buying DVDs for the really special movies you plan to watch over and over again.

24. Put no junk mail signs on your letter box to reduce junk mail build up. If more people do this less catalogues will be printed (I can only hope!).

25. Switch to emailed bills to save on unnecessary printing.

This weeks comment question: How have you adopted #zerowasteliving in your home? Let me know your favourite Zero Waste Tips in the comments below! 🙂

[Photo: Sylvie Tittel]

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 🙂

Older Posts