The Minimalist Way Page 8

  Leisure Time: Carve Out Time to Just Be

  I’ve never been on a road trip when I didn’t come home with a clearer perspective and a renewed energy for doing my life on purpose. It’s like climbing a mountain or taking in an incredible sunset: Time away from the minutia of our lives helps us see the big picture again.

  Leisure time as a family allows us to recapture that broader perspective and put into practice any family values that tend to get lost in the shuffle of day-to-day routines and responsibilities. If your family values include beauty and adventure, use your leisure time to explore the natural wonders near you or much farther from home. If you value experiencing cultures different from your own, try a restaurant that serves, say, authentic Peruvian cuisine—or you could save up and travel to Peru instead!

  Leisure time offers us a much-needed break from all the doing and the becoming; it gives us the chance to just be. For all the effort we put into living intentionally, both as individuals and as families, I believe we need to balance that effort out with time to just be who we are and enjoy the companionship of the people we love.

  Exactly how you work leisure time into your family life will vary depending on your personality, your values, and your season of life. Maybe you prefer to work it into your life organically, because leisure time doesn’t really feel like leisure time to you if you have to calendar it in. Or maybe knowing that your family keeps the first Saturday of every month wide open brings you relief during the month, because you know you have some down time to look forward to. Just make sure you don’t push leisure so far to the back burner that it never happens for you and your family. You need this time to breathe, relax, and connect.

  Bringing Love and Connection to Your Family Routines

  I have a friend who wakes his son up every morning by climbing into bed with him for a morning snuggle—no matter how short on time they are. A longtime reader of my blog tells me she calls out, “Love you more!” every time she closes the door to her mom’s assisted living apartment.

  Whatever you’ve chosen as your values for your family, I bet most of us share a common thread: a form of connection, cohesion, unity, and love. According to researcher and storyteller Brené Brown, we are wired for connection.

  Whether you’re supporting your sweetheart, raising children, caring for aging parents, loving on your grandkids, or anything in between, I hope these small but powerful actions help you work more love and connection into your family’s routines.

  “After collecting thousands of stories, I’m willing to call this a fact: A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong.” —BRENÉ BROWN

  •Regularly tell stories from your life. Childhood adventures and youthful run-ins with the cops. What you thought the first time you saw your spouse. What you felt on your wedding day and the day your child learned to ride a bike. Tell your stories at the dinner table, in the car, or before you say goodnight. Use story to tie your family—past, present, and future—together.

  •Refer to your family as a team. Team Williams, Team Rodriguez, Team Russo … Call yourself a team, and you’ll live like one.

  •Use the words “no matter what.” I love you no matter what.

  •Maximize your time at the dinner table with purposeful conversations. Take turns sharing what you’re grateful for or sharing a thorn and a rose (a negative and a positive experience) from your day.

  •Keep dating your partner.

  •Read aloud to your kids, no matter their age.

  •Post your family values where everyone can see them, and make them a part of your daily walk and talk.

  •Put down your phone.

  •Double the amount of eye contact you make with your spouse, children, and other loved ones. (Better yet, triple it.)

  •Have stay-up-late nights, where one kid gets to stay up an extra 15 minutes and enjoy some low-key, one-on-one time with a parent. I suggest doing it on your child’s birth date every month. That way you and your child are less likely to forget and more likely to look forward to it.

  •Watch your kids or your partner when they’re sleeping and then tell them about it the next day.

  •Say you’re sorry (and mean it).

  •When a family member is hurting, try to place yourself in a similar situation from your past and really remember what it felt like to be where they are.

  •Write a note of appreciation for your partner and tuck it into their bag before they leave for work.

  •Call your parents. Text them pictures of your life. They like to see what you’re up to.

  •Use a chalkboard, a dry erase board, or even a dry erase marker on a mirror to write encouraging notes and quotes for your family. It’s a subtle way to let family members know you’re aware of them and their struggles.

  •Look for recurring times when you can work a little more connection into your days, like giving your young kids a kiss every time you buckle them into their car seats or greeting your spouse with a bear hug at the end of every day.

  •Let your family see you being silly. Sing at the top of your lungs in the car, dance in the grocery store, pull a harmless prank. Model a life of joy.

  Minimalist Families Go Their Own Way

  It boils down to this: Minimalist families are families who trust themselves more than they trust the crowd. They aren’t afraid to go against the grain, whether it’s treating family dinner like it’s sacred, refusing to do too many activities at once, being conscious and purposeful with their spending, or dancing to the Michael Jackson song that comes on at the supermarket. They know their values as a family and use them to shape their identities in a profound way.

  Knowing your why as a family will help you finally quiet the noise around you and instead listen to the voice within.

  6

  finances and budgeting

  Tim Jenkins had always thought of himself as someone who didn’t need a lot to be happy. In his early twenties, he’d driven to every one of his college classes in an old Volvo that had been passed down to him from an aunt. He nursed that puppy straight through college and the first six years of his marriage, to the point where the driver’s side door no longer opened and one of the brake lights had permanently failed.

  Wisely, he married a woman who also didn’t care much about stuff. They drove paid off cars, owned a modest house just outside of town, and believed in fixing things up instead of replacing them. Maybe it was because of their frugality that they hung onto things even when they shouldn’t have. If they paid good money for something (and by “good money,” I mean any money at all), they didn’t want to part with it. Besides, Tim figured, you never know when something might be useful again.

  When Tim started cleaning out the garage in 2012, he discovered that he and his wife, Emily, acquired way more than they thought—and that they got rid of very little of it. Their garage was full of baby bouncers, collapsed cribs, and piles of onesies, all of which their kids had long since outgrown. Maybe hanging on, he thought, has just become our habit.

  As someone who had always prided himself on not being a material person, he was disturbed by the realization of how much his family consumed. He started seeing the impact of their consumerism, even if it was less than many others’. He noticed the toll their belongings took on their mental bandwidth, their patience, their physical energy, and—on the most basic level—their bank accounts.

  At about that time, Tim and Emily heard about a movement of people who were committing to buying nothing new (except for bare essentials, like brake fluid and toilet paper) for one calendar year. They decided to join in, pledging to only shop secondhand and only when necessary.

  In the 12 months that followed, Tim and Emily learned that, although they had always valued thriftiness and financial security, they had lost sight of those values over the years.

  Luckily for you and for me, a yea
r of little to no spending isn’t the only way to find the clarity Tim and Emily arrived at. An open heart and a discerning eye as you examine your finances is often all it takes to start reining in your purchasing.

  Reflection

  Look back at the value tree you made in chapter 2. Because “finances and budgeting” isn’t one of our five life domains, read over the values you selected for all of the domains, and pull out three words that best fit with your vision for your financial welfare. Write them here, and use them as a guide as you implement the strategies in this chapter.

  1. –––––––––––—

  2. –––––––––––—

  3. –––––––––––—

  Write in a journal or reflect on the following questions before moving on: How do you want to feel when you think about your finances? What’s your vision for your long-term financial welfare? What’s holding you back from feeling the way you want to and achieving your vision?

  Strategies for Minimalist Finances

  At first glance, the connection between minimalism and money is obvious: A minimalist spends less and saves more! But beyond that, minimalists get to enjoy the mental and emotional space that minimalist spending frees up, from worrying less about bills and debt to feeling more secure in their financial future.

  Most of us, though, weren’t born with a minimalist mind-set around money—and surprisingly, not many of us were ever taught it. Use the following strategies to change the way you think about your current habits and your future financial welfare.

  “The only way you will ever permanently take control of your financial life is to dig deep and fix the root problem.” —SUZE ORMAN

  1. FIND OUT WHERE YOUR MONEY IS GOING

  If you don’t already keep track of your spending, pull up your last six months of credit card and bank statements, and start a simple spreadsheet. (You can also use a personal budgeting software, like Mint.com.) Create columns for the categories that make sense for you and your family, such as grocery and dining, personal shopping, auto costs, entertainment, medical bills, health and fitness, etc. Go through your statements and enter expenditures under each category, breaking them up by creating a new tab for every month. Total your expenditures up (by month) when you’re finished. This exercise should give you a picture of where your money is really going month after month.

  2. ASK YOURSELF IF YOUR SPENDING REFLECTS YOUR VALUES

  Think back to your top three guiding values. Let’s imagine that two of your top three are adventure and wonder. But when you look at your recent spending, you don’t see a single charge for an airline flight or a kayak rental or even a parking fee at a nearby state park. Where’s the adventure and wonder you’ve been craving?

  Or let’s imagine that two of your top three guiding values are openness and novelty, because one thing you want more than almost anything else is to experience life, instead of watching it pass by. But on your credit card statements you see more than a dozen charges for Chinese takeout and movie rentals—movies you watched in your pajamas on your couch.

  While there’s nothing inherently wrong with a movie in your pajamas (I’m a fan!), tracking your finances can open your eyes to how you really spend your time and money—and whether your choices are in line with your values.

  3. SET A BUDGET THAT SUPPORTS YOUR VALUES

  Using the spreadsheet or budgeting software, create a tentative monthly budget for each category you created in step 1. If you’ve determined you’re spending more money than you want to on food, for example, (and very little on new experiences) adjust your food and entertainment budgets to better reflect what you value. For the first month, plan to check your credit card and bank statements as often as possible—at least weekly—to help you stay on track.

  Then, for the first six months after you’ve created your budget, schedule into your calendar a time at the end of each month to review your spending, update your spreadsheet, and evaluate whether the amount you allocated for each category is on target. You may need to adjust the budgets per category as you become more familiar with your needs, your values, and your consumption habits.

  Over time, as you practice intentionality with your finances, you’ll start to feel the peace of mind that comes from not just living within your means but from putting your money toward the things you really value.

  4. KEEP YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

  This, I admit, is sometimes the point where my zeal for budgeting begins to die a slow, sad death … And I don’t think I’m alone in this. So often we read a chapter like this one (or watch an inspiring TED talk or have a great conversation with a friend who happens to be a budgeting boss), and we get all fired up about mastering our spending habits. So we create a budget and maybe even stick to it for a few months. But then life happens, and we lose the fire.

  My answer for this obstacle is accountability. But even more than that, it’s knowing yourself—or more specifically, knowing what kind of accountability is most effective for you. Some people resist being accountable to someone else, whereas others prefer it.

  If you notice that you tend to push back against external accountability, such as from a friend or your spouse, look for it inside of yourself by continually coming back to your why. Remind yourself of your answers to these questions:

  •What do I hope to accomplish or change within myself by living in this budget?

  •Why is it so important to me to monitor my consumption?

  •What am I trying to prioritize financially?

  •What will I show myself if I stick to this?

  •What kind of person am I trying to become?

  •How will my new habits benefit my family?

  On the other hand, if you do your best work when you have someone or something holding you accountable, brainstorm ways you can build that accountability into this process. For some, a recurring reminder in your calendar might be enough. Others might need to get a friend or a spouse on board—someone who will regularly check in with you about your monthly spending.

  5. PAUSE BEFORE PURCHASING

  In chapter 1, under Emotional Avoidance, I talked about how we often use shopping as a way to distract ourselves from our feelings. Rather than feel what we’re meant to feel in a given moment, we seek out—whether consciously or not—that dopamine hit we get from strolling through a favorite store or scrolling through a favorite retailer’s website.

  What if one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your financial well-being is as simple as a pause? What if every time you wanted to buy something, you made yourself wait a day, an hour, or even five minutes? I’d bet your purchases would drop in half, if not more. Next time you go to buy something, even if it’s something you think you need, step back, pause, recite your top three guiding values, and ask yourself which one of your values this purchase is serving. More often than not, you’ll realize you don’t really need the item after all.

  6. REDUCE UNNECESSARY SPENDING

  To me, minimalism isn’t synonymous with living frugally (although they often occur in tandem), because minimalism is more about spending your money in ways that feel right to you than it is about saving money all around. That said, adopting a minimalist mind-set means becoming aware of areas where you want to consciously spend your money, as well as areas where you want to cut back. I hope the following ideas inspire you to see areas in your own life where you can save your money in order to put it toward the things and experiences that mean the most to you.

  •Plan your meals (see chapter 5) to take advantage of grocery sales, minimize trips to the store, and prevent food waste at home.

  •Experiment with couponing.

  •Schedule online autopay for your bills to avoid late fees (and as a bonus, free up some space in your brain!).

  •Use a subscription-based TV service (like Netflix or Hulu) instead of paying for cable. Or try living without TV altogether.

  •Attend free events put on by your church or
community.

  •Spend more time in nature.

  •Avoid buying fast food by taking snacks with you when you travel or go on outings.

  •Pack your lunch for work instead of eating out or buying food at the cafeteria.

  •Check in with family and friends (or even post your request on Facebook) when you need an item, to see if you can borrow or have one for free.

  •Organize clothing swaps with friends, for either you or your kids.

  •Be more mindful of your utility use.

  •Share a car as a couple, or use public transportation more often.

  •Walk or bike short distances instead of driving.

  7. DETERMINE YOUR APPROACH TO CREDIT CARDS, HOME LOANS, AND OTHER DEBTS

  How you choose to handle credit and debt is such a personal decision that, rather than tell you how to do it, I’d like to highlight the experiences of two people who have adopted powerful minimalist mind-sets regarding debt.

  If you feel weighed down by debt, commit now to seeking help, developing a minimalist’s perspective on consumption, and actively working to change your habits so that you can pay your debts off and ultimately experience the deep relief of financial freedom.

  “Years ago, my wife and I decided we’d pay our credit card balance in full every month. We use a card that gives us points toward travel, which we love, but knowing that we’ll be paying off the balance every month forces us—in a good way—to watch what we spend, because if we don’t have the money, we won’t be able to pay it off, and there’s no way we’re breaking our decade-long streak!”

  —Steven N., Toronto, Canada

  “In my twenties I developed some pretty poor money management habits. I opened all kinds of store credit cards and was constantly getting hit with late fees or overdrafting my checking account. When it finally got so bad that I had to move back in with my parents at age 31, I knew something had to change. I canceled my credit cards and only let myself use my debit card. I also turned off overdraft protection, so if I tried to spend more than I had in my account, my card would get declined. Even now, three years later, I won’t let myself open a credit card. While I know that many people do fine with two or three credit cards, I know that I need simple. By only using my debit card, I can see all my transactions in one place, and for now, this feels right for me.”