I dunno why people have this miserable idea but apparently, minimalists are extremely miserly about spending and buying things which money can buy.
Well, part of it is true. We do be picky while buying things money can buy. But we aren’t miserly about it.
My journey to minimalism
My journey to minimalism started when I had to shift to another place, the fourth in a year. And this was just my first year being away from my family.
I decided to go minimalist because, well, frankly, I was curious.
I actually have very precise and whimsical (NOT) reasons to start living a minimalist life.
But before I start, let me tell you what the core values of minimalism appealed to my long-term goals:
- 1. For starters, you stop buying excess of things which add no value to your life. For me, that’s washing machine and fridge. I intend to go green in the time span of 5-7 years, and having one puking CFCs like there’s no tomorrow and the other one flushing out tons of water every time I wash clothes are a big NO NO.
- 2. Next – things you can make do without, and things like makeup are of no value to me. Cosmetics also clash with my go green motive, plus, I don’t want my soft skin to die so soon.
- 3. To go completely green, I need to depend only on the most natural remedies or methods to live, often meaning buying bio-degradable and renewable items, mostly premium prized cause they are special.
- 4. It saves money.
Welcome to my journey!
My minimalist living tips
I wouldn’t recommend you to follow my minimalist living tips, because some of them are drastic changes I made in my life in a very short span of time (think 1 month). I made them as I went, and learning what floats my boat best.
The first thing I did was to search for my fourth home which lacks a fridge and a washing machine. My third home had a fridge, and air coolers as well for the hot summers we have. I was given 30 days’ time to leave the premises, and the tricky part was that the 1 June was right in the middle of heat wave happening in the central region of my Motherland.
I frantically started touring the world wide web on how to survive without a refrigerator and frankly speaking, most of the searches were useless for me. Those who do live and rock living without a refrigerator are the ones having a farm, or those who have a freezer instead.
I don’t have any of them.
The problems
So, I started researching more about how long do said fruits and vegetables survive without being refrigerator. Basically, the non-refrigerated shelf-life.
And since I don’t want a washing machine, I need to wash clothes on my own. Which is fine.
Except that I had too many of them. You can guess what I did next. I re-cluttered my wardrobe and found out clothes which “oh-my-god-why-on-earth-are-you-throwing-them-they-look-sweet-on you” but never wore them in the past five months.
Decluttering and Decor
After segregating them from the list, I securely packed them and put them in my bed storage area. And also, put them on sale. I sold or “gave-away” a few items of them, and am waiting to get the right price to be quoted, because frankly speaking, some of them are gorgeous. This includes makeup (except my beloved brown lipstick. Never throwing that guy).
My sister gave me several cute origami and crafted items, which I used throughout my room and balcony for a sisterly effect. You can say that she is a DIY architect and gave me cute cats and broomstick looking aliens for cheap decorating ideas.I actually stole that origami cat from her room, because it was too cute to leave it behind and Ruhi was too possessive of Perry (cat’s name).
Solution to the fridge
The absence of a fridge created a well-foreseen problem – Preserving food.
Which meant that I had to hire a cook so that she only made that much food which can be eaten in the upcoming meal. Nothing more, nothing less.
Which created an unexpected solution – Learn cooking.
I like to think of it as a mix of Late Bloomer and Necessity is the Mother of all inventions. What feat could not be achieved by my mother to teach me the arts of the kitchen in 20 years, minimalism and 365 days did.
Yay! I am officially an independent woman!
Future plans
As for future plans, I intend to buy a zeer pot to function as the Eco-friendly fridge and hire someone to wash my clothes by hand. I also want to buy All birds shoes (every atom of it is Eco-friendly or recycled), bio-degradable pads, pencils which become saplings and bamboo bras, to name a few.
What’s your plan to go green? Tell me and maybe I can fit that into my agenda.
P.S: Do anyone of you have a zeer pot yet? Are they heavy to roam around with?