I am the mother of three kids and I’ve always been skeptical of minimalism. I like to go shopping and I like stuff!
Three years ago my son, Lage, who was ten at the time started piling things outside his room. The pile got so big it was blocking the door to our only bathroom!
When I asked him what he was doing he said, ”I am sick of all the extra stuff because it makes me feel anxious and stressed!
I only want to have things I need and love in my room!” -Lage
He easily gave away ¼ of his stuff! This was hard for me to swallow, but for the first time, I realized that we could help Lage with his ADHD by minimizing the things in our home.
Is Minimalism only for the Rich?
The truth is that social media chalks up minimalism to be living in an architect-designed white box with few expensive furnishings. This form of minimalism may be for the rich. We can’t all afford to pay famous architects and interior designers to design the perfect ‘Minimalist’ living space, but I think this projection of minimalism is wrong.
I am a minimalist and I am NOT rich! In fact, Minimalism saves me money and time! It keeps me from buying things that I regret as well.
We live minimally in an old barn conversion with all of its country charm and just happen to have less stuff in our home than the average person.
Not one person who visited our home since we minimized its contents has commented on the lack of stuff.
Once in a blue moon, we get comments that our home is much cleaner than it used to be!
One of the main argument I hear from people who have not tried minimalism is, ‘‘I can’t afford to be a minimalist because it’s an expensive lifestyle!’’
I understand their concern because I shared it for many years. My husband asked me to minimize the kids’ clothes and the storage room (among other things) years before I was ready to discard anything.
The argument I gave him for not minimizing was, ‘’We may need things in the future. What if we discard the wrong items and find we need to buy them again? Will we even have the money for that?’’
I finally had to come to terms with the fact that my hoarding of children’s paraphernalia boiled down to three root problems.
- One, I was worried about the future. I was using excess stuff as a bandaid hoping it would make me feel safe.
- Two, I wanted to give my kids things I never had.
- Three, I thought I was saving money.
I would like to discuss these fears in more detail because they seem to be the main stumbling block for most people when it comes to minimalism.
Fear of the Future
One of my worst fears was not having enough money!
I grew up in middle-class America. Even Though many middle-class Americans are far richer than most of the world, many of them have never been taught how to manage money.
Most schools don’t have a curriculum for teaching kids to handle money in the real world. If your parents don’t teach you about personal finances you’re probably going to have to figure it out on your own.
I remember when I was in 3rd grade and my dad switched jobs. He took a job at a small private school because it fit his calling as a teacher. My brother and I were enrolled there and enjoyed the social change from homeschooling.
I didn’t realize at the time that our family finances took a big hit. My father left his business building houses and the pay cut was significant.
My brother and I were never spoiled with things.
We probably got more Christmas gifts than the average kid when you start counting gifts from grandmas and aunts and uncles, but we rarely got toys or clothes if it wasn’t Christmas or a birthday.
When I noticed my parents were struggling to cut down on expenses so we could fit our lifestyle within the financial boundaries of my dad’s new job I started to save everything!
I didn’t want to get rid of clothes I didn’t like. I was worried we didn’t have money to replace them. I held onto everything and if someone was giving something away I was the first person to say yes!
My room resembled a garbage dump most of my middle school years.
Because I couldn’t give anything away there were far more items in my room than were reasonable. My small closet was bursting at the seams and I started hanging clothes all over my room.
Dirty clothes or clothes I tried on and decided not to wear, littered the floor. Sometimes I would walk on inches of clothes that covered the entire floor, this continued until my parents made me clean my room! This pattern continually repeated itself!
Even as a child I wanted to have a clean organized room, and I tried over and over to attain my goal only to fail.
The extreme number of items I owned could not possibly all find homes in my limited room space!
This negative pattern continued to haunt me into adulthood! My goal of creating a clean and organized home for my family seemed unattainable!
I would spend hours cleaning and organizing different parts of my home only to find that we couldn’t keep the spaces clean and organized!
I was frustrated with my kids because they were continually dumping several categories of toys on the floor and mixing them all together.
When they were done playing they had no idea how to sort the toys and put them away. They were paralyzed by the magnitude of the mess!
It took my ten-year-old son to show me the error of my ways! When he decided what to keep and where to put it in his own room he could keep his room clean!
He threw out all the stuff I thought he should have and kept only the clothes, books, toys, electronics, and games he wanted to use.
He kept fewer clothes left than I thought he needed, but I let him try it and I discovered another amazing benefit of minimalism. Fewer clothes = less wash!
My son was naturally good at knowing what he needed and it was easy for him to let go of things.
This was not the case for me, but I recognized that I needed to rescue my family from a mountain of clutter and I was determined to get started!
I first tackled my closet and my two young girls’ clothes. I went through the kitchen gadgets next, and I took many items and pieces of furniture to the storage room wanting to ‘test’ living without before donating them.
This process opened up extra floor space in our home and made it much easier for us to pick up! I was so inspired I decided to tackle some of the things I had in storage.
I moved all the hand-me-downs and on-sale clothes, I bought and saved for my kids, into one room. That gave me a shock!
I realized at once there were way more items of clothing than my third child could possibly wear!
Because I saved all the intact clothes that my oldest children grew out of, and I bought my youngest daughter some new items there was a mountain of banana boxes full of clothes for her to grow into!
I had organized everything by size and in some sizes, there were 4 banana boxes of clothes! Because I had recently gone through the clothes she was currently wearing I had an idea of how many items she needed and 4 banana boxes was 3 boxes too many!
I finally realized that this idea of saving things to make our future better, easier, or cheaper had gone too far!
This realization and the fact that friends of ours were surprised by an unexpected pregnancy helped me let go of ¾ of my stash!
I sold some of the expensive winter items and gave a carload of clothes to our friends. I made sure they knew they were free to give anything they didn’t want to the second-hand store, and I was glad the many items were given a good home.
Ask yourself some questions to help put life and minimalism in perspective.
One, What would happen if we suddenly needed items we discarded?
One check on eBay and Craigslist showed me that the second-hand market for most items was alive and well and we could buy items at a fraction of the retail price.
Most items I was hoarding for ‘Just in case’ were not scarce or expensive if bought second-hand.
Two, What would happen if we suddenly landed in financial trouble and we couldn’t buy something we needed for the kids?
If the worst-case scenario happened and we suddenly lost our savings or had some huge unexpected bills we needed to pay that wiped out our savings and then some, we could ask family or friends to help us out with a temporary loan or remortgage the house.
If the kids needed new winter clothes we could always check second-hand stores or garage sales first and if we couldn’t find anything we could afford, we could ask our parents for help.
We could take on a side hustle to pay for unexpected expenses. These days there are plenty of extra jobs that you can do on the side.
Everything from delivering groceries to driving taxis are now easy extra sources of income.
In other words, I realized that having an uncluttered easy to clean family home where my ADHD children can feel calm, is worth far more to me than my hoard of stuff that can be easily replaced!
Two, How to handle the desire to give your kids things you never had.
I think all of us parents have the desire to make our kids’ childhood better than our own, and we should strive to make our childrens’ childhood the best that it can possibly be!
The big question is are we making our children’s lives better by giving them more stuff than they know what to do with?
I find that my children only get stressed by excess stuff in their rooms or in our home.
My way of satisfying my innate desire to give my children better things than I received myself, is now satisfied by giving my children experiences.
I like to take my children out one at a time and do things with them one on one.
Next week my daughter and I are taking the day off work and school to get her new glasses.
This will probably only take a couple of hours of our day and the rest of the time we can eat lunch together and pick out a few items of clothing that she really needs. (You would be surprised how fun it is to go shopping when you actually need something!)
When we were on vacation this summer I took each child on an outing by ourselves. We ate ice cream and did things they thought were fun.
One thing that I always wished my family had done growing up was going to Disney World. We never actually made the trip.
This was an experience I wanted to give my kids! We live far enough from Disney World that we needed to fly, so this was going to be an expensive trip. We saved up over the course of a year and we now have wonderful family memories from our trip!
”Memories are worth more than things!” Annie Eklöv
Good family memories don’t need to be expensive. My husband built a treehouse with our two oldest kids some years ago. This was a great opportunity to teach the kids how to use tools and build. They had lots of fun building together.
The latest joint building project was putting up a 70-meter long zipline in the forest behind our house.
This was a bigger project which involved a chainsaw and teaching the kids about climbing gear!
The best part about these kinds of family projects is that the fun isn’t limited to the project itself. Even after the project is over the fun goes on and on!
Your family can make wonderfully fun memories from the simple activity of playing games together! If you already have some games this activity is free! All it takes is some freed-up space in your schedule!
The best way to give your kids a better childhood than your own is to give them more of yourself! I think every child longs for more time with their parents.
If you think, saving stuff =saving money, think again!
I made the mistake of believing that all the stuff I was saving me money.
It wasn’t until I realized I was buying duplicates (because I could never find what I needed) that I let go of this false idea!
I had so much inventory that I couldn’t find what I needed when I needed it! All the kids’ clothes that I had been saving were labeled and sorted by size, but there was so much of it I rarely found what I needed.
When I was in the store or at a garage sale and I found something for a good price I never knew If I had something similar packed away at home!
The realization that I owned 6 winter snowsuits all size 7 years plus winter jackets and snow pants felt like a slap in the face!
A couple of snowsuits were well used by my middle daughter (Maria) and a couple were almost new because Maria refused to wear a particular color!
I had apparently bought Maria snowsuits and when she wouldn’t wear them bought a couple more!
Now you would think I would remember that we had 4 snowsuits of the same size, but I didn’t! I bought a couple more snowsuits when a shop went out of business!
There is no way that my daughter can use 6 snowsuits in one winter! We don’t even have enough space in the hallway to hang 6 snowsuits!
I would have saved considerable money if I had waited until my first daughter actually needed winter clothes.
Then I could have taken her with me to pick out what she actually wanted to wear.
Even if I paid full price for expensive winter items. It would have been less than the combined price of 6 snowsuits + jacket and snow pants!
Even if they were on sale the combined price of all the excess is more than the retail price of what we actually needed!
So much for saving money!
The worst of it is that I didn’t just waste money on these items. I wasted my time!
- I bought the items
- I lugged them home
- I stored them
- I Labeled the boxes
- I got them out
- I tried them on my youngest daughter
- I took pictures of them
- I put them on ebay
- I boxed them
- I drove them to the post office!
All that to sell them for a fraction of the price I paid for them!
I do still have some hand-me-downs in the storage room, but only the stuff I think my kids actually need!
I stopped buying things on off-season sales unless I know that we need it in the next year and I have one of my kids along to give their stamp of approval!
Conclusion
Minimalism may not make you a millionaire, but it can definitely save you money if you think twice about what you are purchasing and if you need it!
Those of us who live middle-class lives are going to go about minimalism differently from those who are rich.
If you always have money to buy what you want, there is no reason for you to save things that you have no emotional attachment to. If life throws you a curveball you have the means to buy what you need when the situation arises.
Minimalism will look different for everyone.
If you are planning to have more kids it would not make sense to give away your crib or stroller. If your kids have flown the coop then maybe you enjoy rolling up your sleeves drastically decluttering!
You don’t need to count the number of items you keep; it’s NOT a competition! Just keep in mind that every item you own takes up a bit of your time.
I hope that reading about my journey will inspire you to start decluttering soon!
If you enjoyed this post check out my other posts on minimalism and family games!
Why Minimalists should embrace colorful minimalism!
Minimalism and ADHD with Kids
Don’t make the same 10 minimizing mistakes I did!
Games transform Kids
10 Games 3-6 year olds, with ADHD and Dyslexia, can play!
15 Awesome Games for 5-7 year olds, with ADHD and Dyslexia!
20 Amazing Games for 7-10 year olds with ADHD/ADD and Dyslexia!
15 Super Games for 10-99 Year Olds with ADHD/ADD and Dyslexia
Copyright Annie Eklöv