House

By Naomi | Published: July 3, 2010

What makes us live within our means or push ourselves to our financial limit and even exceed it? I grew up with parents, well my mother in particular, for whom the thought of being in debt was horrifying. They never had much money (enough, but no more) and with that we had a holiday every year, an extended education, music lessons, you get the idea. They even managed to save money and during harder times have helped us out. They think it’s what parents should do. My mother told me that once (yes, just the once) they spent more than they should have at Christmas and went a little overdrawn. It took them the rest of the year to pay it back and they never did it again. For them, the idea that you can walk away from your debt is morally questionable. Read More »

Posted in Family, Life, Money | 1 Comment

Bits

By Naomi | Published: June 28, 2010

I have vague memories of doing one of those tests you take in careers classes which are supposed to tell you what kind of worker you are, you know, Planner, Leader, Finisher etc. (A quick aside: I don’t know what careers classes are like in other countries but in England in the 80′s they were dire. The one thing I was certain of was that my future was in the arts but my careers “advisor” seemed to think my destiny lay in the heady world of the bilingual secretary…). Anyway, the tests, as with all those kinds of things, only allowed you to be one kind of person. I don’t remember what I was but I know for certain I wasn’t a “Finisher”.

Much as I dismiss the tests, the fact that I wasn’t a Finisher does actually seem to have held some water. We’ve come a long way in the last few years. The contents of our house must have at least halved. We’re nearly at the point we want to be with all our stuff. Ok, so we’ll never achieve the 100 things challenge, but to be honest that’s not really what we’re about. As long as the stuff we’re surrounded with is of use or value (by which I mean it means something to us), we’re happy. And when I said “nearly” I really meant it. We’re so close! Yet there are things around that just keep us from feeling like we’ve got there. The bits.

You know how it goes, you sort out all your stuff and there’s this box left at the end. It’s stuff you don’t really think you want but then again you’re a bit slow to get rid of it. It’s stuff you can’t bring yourself to just give away. It’s stuff you need to find time to make decisions about. In the meantime it’s sitting there. The box. It represents all those unfinished projects (you know, that “To Do” list that you keep re-writing with a new date at the top). It gets in the way. I have to move it around every time we have guests in the spare room. I have to look at it at some point every day. Occasionally I remove the contents and shuffle them around a bit and put them back in. It’s on my mind. Sometimes it even makes me a bit nuts and I have a rant about getting something done about it. Sometimes I try and shift the blame and get Simon to sort his stuff in the hope that it will give me the motivation to sort mine. Deep down I know I just need to FINISH it.

Can I step outside my personality type? What lies on the other side of project Reduce Stuff? There’s only one way to find out.

Posted in Organise, Reduce | 1 Comment

Nothing

By admin | Published: June 23, 2010

I was watching a documentary recently and the narrator made the, fairly common, statement about some people living somewhere seemingly being happy despite having “nothing”. I seem to hear that comment a lot and yet, for some reason, it really struck me this time.

It’s interesting what the Western world views as having nothing. Being a Westerner myself I’m all too aware of what the presenter meant. Part of me has an ingrained reflex that blindly accepts the concept. I almost can’t help thinking, ‘Hmm…you’re right. Those people have nothing.’ Except this time my knee-jerk reaction was followed by a bit more consideration.

What these people didn’t have, I suppose, was a television. Or a mobile phone. Or even electricity for that matter. They didn’t even have running water. Oh sure, they had close-knit families, they made their own alcohol and sat around in the evenings talking with friends. They ate fresh food, freshly prepared. They were healthy. Oh, and they were spiritually fulfilled. But not one of them had an iPhone.

It served as a reminder of how far away from minimalist nirvana we are. Yes, there’s an obvious response. Maybe those people would have liked a bit more than nothing. Their lifestyle wasn’t a choice – they were genuinely poor. These criticisms are not unfounded. It’s galling to hear a middle-class Westerner talking about how lucky people are that have nothing at all. But, there was something about their lifestyle that drew you in and made you long for something else.

I guess what most people struggle with when they try to live a minimalist lifestyle is the fact that it is about reduction. They need to get rid of things. This process brings its own rewards but it can never bring about the kind of appreciation for what we have that starting with nothing gives us. When we have nothing, everything we gain can be cherished.

So, when we really think about our possessions and what matters so much we just have to own it, it’s helpful to start from the point of view of nothing. Then, all we need to remember is that the nothing we’re referring to is life itself.

Posted in Essential, Reduce | 6 Comments

Pink

By Naomi | Published: June 17, 2010

My four year old daughter told me that I don’t like the stuff she likes. I asked her what she meant. She replied that I won’t let her have all the stuff she sees in the shops that she likes and therefore she thinks I don’t like it. I start off on some rambling explanation about stuff and waste and appreciating things and excess. She gives me a blank look. I try again. This time I go for the “where would we put it all” tack. She doesn’t think being buried under a ton of her own pink, princess crap would be a problem. I agree. If I was four years old I wouldn’t think this was a problem either.

So where do I go from here? I have to say the “where would we put it” argument was lame. It certainly isn’t the reason I don’t buy her everything she sees that she likes and I don’t want her to think that. If we lived in a huge mansion I wouldn’t buy her everything. It isn’t about money either. If we had all the money in the world I still wouldn’t buy her everything. So how do I explain it without just sounding plain old mean.

Here’s what I tried and the conversation that followed….

Well, do you remember your birthday?
Yes, I got loads of presents
Can you tell me what you got?
Um, some toys and games.
I mean, exactly, tell me exactly what you got?
I can’t remember.
Well, maybe that’s because you got so many presents.
I did.
Do you think if you had got just one, very special present (and I don’t mean one that cost a lot or was really big, just something you really, really wanted), you would have remembered?
Yes.
So, if I bought you all the things you see in the shops that you like, would it be special or would you just forget about them?
I’d forget.
Would it be better to just have a few special things that you really, really like and really use?
That would be good.

Did I manipulate that? Of course. Did she get it? I hope so. At least she hasn’t asked for a load of plastic crap since and believe me, there seems to be plastic crap everywhere we look.

It’s hard to teach our kids about restraint. That’s not to say our kids miss out. Every day I seem to have to excavate our house out from under all the stuff they’ve been playing with. But we can at least go out without being nagged to buy things. They enjoy looking but not needing to take it with us. How long can this continue? Who knows. School is just around the corner, peer pressure, pocket money. There may be trouble ahead….

Posted in Family, Reduce | 2 Comments

Landscape

By Naomi | Published: April 25, 2010

I think that sometimes our children inhabit a different world. I remember being there myself a very long time ago. They have none of the clutter of adult life to contend with but create a very unique clutter all of their own. We share most of our time, spending it together, playing, reading, going places. They love to help even with the chores, following me around with a duster and shoving the vacuum cleaner around. But there are times when I just have to get on with stuff. You know, washing, reading all the junk that comes through the letterbox and sorting it into various recycling receptacles, cleaning that I don’t let them do, the mucky stuff.

During these times my children play together. I sometimes have to intervene, but on the whole they play beautifully. I hear them giggling, chatting, making up stories, going on aeroplanes, making dens, having picnics. My older daughter “reads” to her little sister. And they collect stuff and distribute it around our home. By stuff I mean feathers, flowers, little piles of grass, glass beads that for some reason appear in our garden, empty snail shells. Mostly it’s stuff they have found outside and sometimes it isn’t as clean as the stuff you would choose to live with.

I do remember being in that place. Finding those things fascinating and wanting to collect them. My sister and I made boxes of similar bits as holiday souvenirs. I have to remind myself, however, of the importance those little things have now I’m older and no longer live in that world.

Today I made a parenting mistake. I didn’t take the time to stop and think. I was tidying the house and cleaning. Not something I do with any routine or system. I just found myself with an hour when the girls were busying themselves. I whipped through the bathroom with a rubbish bag and without thinking threw away a rather scruffy feather which had been sitting on the windowsill for a few days.

At bedtime our story book mentioned feathers and the girls jumped up and said “we’ve got a feather, we’ll go and find it and show it to you”. Ah. As they dashed off to the bathroom I asked Simon “how do they remember all that stuff? They haven’t touched that feather for days”. And he said, rather profoundly “It’s part of the landscape that makes up their world”.

So much as having a tidy house is really important to me, I promise to be extra careful from now on with the little things the girls bring home. Minimalism is great, but it has to accommodate the world inhabited by two small children. After all, it’s their house too.

Posted in Family, Organise | 4 Comments

Oh

By Naomi | Published: April 1, 2010

Today I overheard a lady say to another “I just shouldn’t come into town”. The other said “I know, it’s awful isn’t it. I know if I come I’m going to spend money”. The first replied “You just can’t help yourself can you though?”……

Can you? Help yourself? Are we that weak and easily led? I can’t hold myself up as an example of someone who isn’t tempted by those impulse buys of course. Clearly, with a history of debt to my name, I succumbed to many a trip into town for something and returned home with quite a few somethings. But was it my fault or could I just “not help myself”?

I’d love to think the whole sorry affair was down to someone or something much bigger and cleverer than me. I’d love to think that no matter how I tried there was just no way I could resist. But if I can manage to go into town now, with the lessons I’ve had to learn still ringing loudly in my ears, and come home with nothing more than I actually went for, why couldn’t I do it before? And why can’t the women whose conversation I wandered in to?

Part of me puts it down to excellent marketing. And I do honestly think that those folks out there touting their wares at us know exactly which buttons to press to get us reaching for our credit cards. But that’s really just a cop out. It allows me to be weak and blame someone else. I really think its down to thinking. I hope I live life in a much more thoughtful way these days. It’s taken a lot of bad decisions and mistakes to get here but maybe I needed to go through them to end up where I am. I know those impulse buys won’t make the slightest bit of difference to my state of mind (whatever it may be) once I get home. I know those lovely things that really did look so lovely in the shop will fill me, not with happiness, but with a kind of sapping emptiness once they are hanging in my closet or sitting on a shelf. I know my bank balance won’t look as rosy as it could. And I think about all those things.

I wonder too if you never have a thinking kind of moment in life and you never stop and wonder about all that stuff you buy if you can just be happy like that. Maybe those women were completely happy with life and with their impulsive shopping. Maybe you are either the kind of person who stops and thinks about it and then does something or the kind who never really thinks about it at all (and I guess there must be some in-betweeners who stop and think about it then carry on regardless). I’m not suggesting either is right or wrong and I’d never suggest that those who love to shop are poor saps who could never be happy because they haven’t found enlightenment. I hope those two women got home and were fabulously happy with their new stuff and weren’t left thinking, as I often did, “oh”.

Posted in Money, Reduce | 8 Comments

Death

By Naomi | Published: March 25, 2010

Morbid though it is, I’ve been thinking a bit about death. More specifically its use in encouraging people to think about life – “Live every day as if it’s your last!”. I don’t know about you but I find death a very hard topic to contemplate. I don’t feel at ease with it, I feel, well, scared to death! And much as death and its inevitability are a pretty good reason to live life to the full, I find I can’t make it a personal reference point without feeling somewhat sick in the pit of my stomach.

So when I’m encouraged to think about my life and consider how happy I would be about what I’d achieved if I was going to die tomorrow I don’t get a sense of empowerment I get a sense of utter panic. I don’t think about looking back and feeling satisfaction I think about my children and what I’d miss. Even though I know it’s not for real, I don’t think about taking stock and cracking on with things I think about how if I die suddenly I won’t know anything about it and my darker side comes out and asks what the point is. Oh and if I am going to pretend it’s my last day, I have lots of goodbyes to say which will take up quite a lot of time.

Not wanting to sound flippant, I assure you I get that the idea is to see life as it is, as a short, sweet experience which you can either live without thought or do your utmost to squeeze every last ounce of whatever it is you want from it. But for me the motivation comes from the small steps, the little things, the slow, slow, slow enjoyment of time. The “live life as if you might die tomorrow” approach triggers a panicky impatience in me which doesn’t allow things to develop slowly and carefully. Our business has taken 10 years to get to the point where we feel we are starting to achieve really exciting, life changing things yet I don’t feel we have wasted time.

I watched a film recently, not a challenging film, a daft, brain oozing out of your ears film, where a man is given a remote control (yep, you’ve seen it!) to play around with time. He finds himself wishing away great chunks of his life chasing promotions and is left at the end of it an old man who has missed his children growing up and all those little details of life that are so important. I understand that this is it. This is my life and I get one chance and once it’s over it’s over. I’m not sitting around waiting for things to happen for me, I’m making things happen for myself. But I have to be careful that I don’t succumb to the constant feeling that things aren’t happening fast enough. There seem to be two things wrong with this. Firstly I want to live in the present, be present, appreciate what I have and feeling impatient muddies that. Secondly I certainly don’t want to wish my life away. I have two amazing children and I want to enjoy them being children as long as possible and assume I’ll have plenty of tomorrows with them.

Simon and I laugh about his dad’s constant references to time passing. At each milestone event through the year, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, he always says “well, that’s another year over…”. It feels as if he’s counting down the years to his eventual demise without so much as a backward glance. Much as I appreciate the importance of making the very most of life (and acknowledging the obvious fact of death is a part of that) I plan to live as if I’m going to be around for ever. For me that’s way more exciting than thinking it might all end tomorrow.

Posted in Life | 10 Comments

Competition

By Naomi | Published: March 9, 2010

Simple living. It has to encompass everything to work. It can’t be just about making your house nice and tidy. But there’s one aspect of life where we seem to make things anything but simple and that’s our relationships.

I seem to be surrounded by couples who constantly compete. They seem to be trying to prove who has the most miserable life. Who is suffering more, working harder, is more stressed. There’s no understanding, appreciation or empathy between the two people who should be working to make life easier for each other. The husband goes to work, the wife stays at home and takes care of the children. The husband thinks the wife spends all day having coffee and chatting with other mums at lovely playgroups. The wife thinks the husband spends all day sitting at a desk. The husband has no idea what it’s like to look after two pre-school children all day every day. The wife has no idea what the husband’s job actually is.

The husband would like the wife to spend all day cleaning, cooking, washing, keeping the house stocked with food, attending to bills and other household management AND playing meaningfully with the children. The wife would like the husband to spend all day in a mad frenzy of work, the equivalent of performing brain surgery whilst ordering the invasion of an army AND getting home in time for dinner. The husband thinks there’s no way on earth the wife could cope with five minutes of his day. The wife thinks the husband would wave a white flag after five minutes of her day. They are probably both right.

Where does it start? How do two people who are supposed to provide each other with more support and appreciation than anyone else come to this? The division of labour in relationships is so often like this. It’s a fact of nature that’s hard to overcome. None of my friends would swap places with their other half. So why can’t they be happy for each other? Why can’t they accept the differences in their roles and support each other?

Competition is something that doesn’t really happen in my house. Simon would love it if I spent the day messing about with the girls and drinking coffee with my friends. I love it when he has an easy day. Maybe we’re just not the competitive types. Maybe we’ve been together so long that we just don’t care about stuff like that any more. Maybe we just don’t take life that seriously. Whatever the reason, it helps us to keep life simple. Life can’t be simple when the leading characters are making everything so complicated.

Posted in Family | 12 Comments

Brink

By Naomi | Published: February 14, 2010

We are on the brink of something. For the past two years we’ve been getting back on our feet since the move and really thinking about what we want our business to achieve. In that time, life has been nail-biting, at least where finances are concerned. We’ve had pretty much as little income we could possibly have to cover the basics. Scary though that’s been it has also been quite liberating. We’ve had to economise. We’ve had to be frugal and frugality has been pretty good. Making a little go a long way is very satisfying. We might, in a few weeks time, have more money than we need to cover the basics. A bit spare, something to start building a cushion for leaner times and something to start working towards our summer away.

If you’ve read some of our earlier posts, you’ll know what a mess we’ve been in financially. Though our escape was easy compared to some, at the depths of our debt there were times I could see no way out. Life was consumed with consuming because we were in so deep a little more didn’t seem to make much difference. I lost sleep, couldn’t open post and didn’t answer the phone. I tell myself now that the experience did have a positive side in that it has made me scared to death of ever spending too much again. As we are poised on the brink of a little spare cash, I hope that it really did.

Since paying off our debt we have bought relatively little. In fact, we have gone out of our way to rid ourselves of the booty that got us into the mess in the first place and we no longer own anything we don’t really need or use. But I’m acutely aware that we aren’t as good as I’d like us to be at always being careful and the very idea that there’s finally some money coming from all our hard work makes me wonder if we can pretend we still don’t have any. Can we resist just having a quick look in that nice shop in town that we always walk past? Can we still make the most economic decisions and spend time checking we’re getting the best deal?

Minimalism is easy if you don’t have anything. With spare cash comes temptation. I love our simpler life not just because I fear debt but because all that stuff never actually made us happy. I look back at us just a few years ago and the difference is astounding. I sometimes can’t believe it was me who spent £200 on yet another bag without thinking. Being in debt doesn’t make you scared of spending money. Being free of debt is what gives you the healthy respect you need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Posted in Improve, Money | 6 Comments

Hub

By admin | Published: February 9, 2010

In days gone by people used to gather around the fireplace. Fire was the centre of people’s lives, whether they were camping outdoors or getting together as a family in their homes. Over time this focus changed. For most people, their television became the hub of their lives, the place that they most often gathered as a family.

As people began to own more than one television and computers came on the scene, this focus was lost. Whatever your feelings on television, time spent in front of it used to be family time. Television ownership, video and on-demand services fragmented this shared culture in the same way that fast food, take-aways and longer working hours eroded the family mealtime.

We’ve been careful to ensure that our family mealtimes remain sacred. More specifically, our evening meal. For one reason or other we can’t always be together at lunchtime, or even breakfast. But we do try very hard to make sure that every evening, at roughly the same time, we sit down to enjoy a meal together. We always cook our own meals (an important part of the ritual for us) and sometimes we’ve even cooked them together (as much as cooking with a two- and four-year old can be considered “teamwork”). The time, attention and care all matters.

The pace of social fragmentation is gathering. The web, social networks, mobile devices and a general globalisation of relationships has made it as likely we’ll spend the day talking to someone on the other side of the planet as someone in our own city. And the positives of this are obvious. Sharing culture globally is a good thing for so many reasons. But what does it mean for our local relationships? And, more importantly, what does it mean for our families?

We can’t answer that question for everyone, but we’ve definitely found our hub. It’s not the television, or a piano (albeit through a lack of talent rather than interest). It’s not even something primeval like a fire. But eating is still a basic human need, and one that is better enjoyed together. What connects you?

Posted in Essential, Family | 2 Comments