What does a simple life mean?
For us, it means trimming all excess in our lives – material, financial and emotional.
It means our life is uncomplicated, drama-free, uncluttered, and financially stable. It also extends to our health and what we eat.
Living a simple life draws us to a homesteading lifestyle – for now, that means an urban homestead.
For you, simplifying life can be whatever you want it to be. Start with the biggest stressors. Decluttering can bring calm when you feel chaos even if you don’t realise it. Examine your budget. What can you change? How’s your health? Will cutting out processed foods help? Maybe start cooking from scratch.
We don’t have to live the way our grandparents and great-grandparents did. We have it much easier. We have convenience, abundance, and excess. But while I agree we don’t have to endure the hardships our ancestors did, we seem to have lost something along the way. Ourselves. Community.
As a society, we are busier than ever. We are financially stressed, anxious, overworked, have little downtime or family time and are sicker than ever.
Add to that the skyrocketing cost of fuel, groceries, insurance, utilities, housing, education and more.
Something must give – and it does in the way of mental and general health issues, broken families, poor relationships and financial distress.
But is it necessary to go to the other extreme and live so simply?
It was for us.
While living simply brings more physical work for me, there is far less mental and emotional stress.
We wanted to enjoy life, now. We didn’t want to live for retirement. The future is not guaranteed. We have watched parents die too young, never getting to experience their much-anticipated retirement years.
Dan and I didn’t want to earn more to pay for more. Instead, we pared down our lives so it cost less. We took control of our lives.
What’s the quote – “Build a life you don’t want to escape?” Well, that’s what we have now.
Making Changes for a Simplified Life
The decision to simplify our lives wasn’t exactly a specific, conscious one, instead, it was more like a series of small steps eventually leading us to where we are now.
The more we experienced simplicity in our lives, the happier we became. It became addictive, pushing us to find other ways to simplify life.
Declutter
We started by getting rid of stuff – both material and financial.
Instead of searching for a larger house to accommodate all our material possessions, we disposed of three-quarters.
We wanted to choose a lifestyle and location without worrying if the house was big enough.
In preparation for an anticipated future move (at that stage we had no clue when we would move, we just knew we would) we culled. We culled A LOT. Furniture was put out on the street marked FREE. Many donations were dropped off. We sold things.
Previously, Dan had put most of his possessions into storage when we moved in together. Believe me when I say that man had some things!!!
When we moved, Dan’s stuff came out of storage. He realised we didn’t need everything. We kept the most treasured and useful of our combined items and donated the rest. Our local op shop loved us!
Our home in the Blue Mountains was small, a converted shed. It was a lovely place to live but we didn’t have room for excess.
Assess Finances
I had already sold my car. With both of us working from home, we did not need two.
By downsizing our material possessions and trimming unnecessary costs and spending, we started to see we could live on less money.
Then I walked the Camino and realised how happy I had been living out of a backpack for 40 days. There were many lessons learned from that walk but realising happiness didn’t come from stuff was a big one.
Moving to our current home in Inverell was the perfect time to put everything we had learnt into practice.
We moved to a country town. We wanted a slower-paced lifestyle and property prices were more affordable than in the cities and suburbs.
We consciously chose to live on one income and transition into a homesteading lifestyle.
Dan runs a web development business and LOVES what he does, and I love everything to do with growing and preserving food, and making our home comfortable (she is 116 years old and slightly neglected).
It was a huge decision. It took both of us some time to be ok with it. It is outside the box in today’s society, after all.
Change Your Mindset
We choose to be mindful of our thoughts and actions and not get caught up with things we have no control over.
Negativity is detrimental to your state of mind, Don’t dwell on what you cannot change. Focus on the present and make plans for the future.
It is easy to become reactionary to things happening in the world, but for the most part, we cannot do anything to change it.
We focus on what is in front of us and what we can change. It is important to us that we express gratitude for all we have while working on what we want to improve.
Dan and I have developed personal boundaries that are right for us and we uphold them.
It is hard to change behaviour, say no, and stand firm for what we want and believe. But by setting firm boundaries we live life on our terms.
Are the Sacrifices Worth It?
We make sacrifices to live this lifestyle, but none too big they affect our happiness.
If I worked outside the home, we couldn’t live like we do now.
We are both introverted, me much more than Dan. We love being at home and now we own our home, we feel great pride and satisfaction doing what work we can to change things to suit our needs and lifestyle.
Our skill sets need improving, but we’re getting there.
Hard work no longer scares us (well, it might occasionally be when chainsaws and mattocks are involved), but we have learnt to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in. Somehow, we get it done, use what we have and make do when it can’t be perfect.
We rarely eat out. We love cooking, so it doesn’t feel like a hardship. If I want a break from cooking, we eat from our food preserves including ready-made meals in a jar. I also batch cook, so there’s usually something rattling around in the fridge or bottom of the freezer we can use for an easy meal.
Our weekly food expenses are minimal, instead, we focus on saving money for a couple of large bulk orders a year. We buy meat in bulk from local farmers or friends, or at a pinch from the local butcher. We eat the food I harvest from the vegetable garden.
Our only debt is our mortgage. We got rid of all but one credit card (used for emergencies only), we own one older car, I buy mostly second-hand including household items and clothing, and we save for other purchases.
I have a capsule wardrobe; it is minimal but sufficient, especially for our lifestyle. Believe me when I say, I NEVER thought I could live with so few clothes.
We use what we have, find, or are given and we make do a lot of the time. When we spend money, it is intentional and not spur of the moment.
We embrace living frugally as a fun challenge, not a punishment. Again, I NEVER thought I would think this way!
I make our soap, deodorant, and salves. The ingredients needed for these are included in our bulk shops. I cook from scratch. I have streamlined the ingredients, so I cook more recipes with fewer ingredients. Sometimes it means getting creative, but I like a challenge.
I know this life isn’t for everyone, it must sound awful to a lot of people. Years ago we would have thought so too.
But I also know, there are a lot of people searching for what we have. I see it online in the homesteading, preserving and off-grid Facebook Groups that are growing at a fast pace.
We are making our little patch into an urban homestead and over time we will become as self-sufficient – or rather community-sufficient – as possible. I will improve and build on the garden and create a food forest and we will be adding chickens in the next year, hopefully.
A Day in My Simple Life
I guess people must wonder what I do with myself all day.
I don’t have a typical day, Any given day can include –
- Painting a room in our house
- Canning/Preserving food
- Water bath and pressure can foods
- Dehydrating – herbs, fruits, vegetables
- Fermenting – Kombucha, vinegars, milk kefir, sauerkraut, mustard
- Gardening
- Vegetable garden – working on and in the garden, sowing seeds, growing seedlings, watering, planting, improving the soil, harvesting food, seed saving
- Flower/Herbal/Medicinal garden – maintaining, building and/or redesigning gardens
- Cooking – our meals are cooked from scratch using garden produce, food in the freezer or the pantry
- Washing dishes – when you preserve and cook breakfast and dinner from scratch there are a LOT of dishes
- Housework – my least favourite
- Learning Herbalism – drying herbs, making tinctures, oil infusions
- Making soap, salves, deodorant, washing powder and natural cleaners
- Blogging – I love to share our experiences
- Work for Dan when admin work needs to be done
This is not every day. I get to pick and choose or garden harvests or necessity dictates what needs to be dealt with or made.
Up until recently, I helped a friend at an op shop once a week. With my time being flexible, I can take volunteer opportunities if they arise, and if it suits me. Also, in the future, if work opportunities arise that align with our life choices, I will be open to them.
On weekends, Dan and I work on projects together. Or we just relax because he works his butt off during the week and a lot of weekends too.
My time is my own and what we save financially by me doing this work (painting, buying seedlings, growing fruit and veg etc) far outweighs the income I would earn. It also gives us a lot of quality time together as a couple.
Know Your Options
We would never have believed living so simply would make us the happiest and most content we have ever been. Like a lot of people, we were caught up in the cycle of buying new things and wanting more, thinking it would make us happy when the opposite was true.
I think it’s important to at least explore what can be simplified in life both physically and financially. Awareness of your options is the key to success.
Instead of saying, “I can’t” outright, perhaps ponder some new ideas. You never know where those ideas and thoughts could lead.
Our decisions work for us, in this current time of life. Granted, life would be very different if we had young children. However, looking back on when my kids were little, there are so many things I could have done differently to simplify the stress of juggling work, home, and the constant running around. I remember at one stage my part-time job only brought in an extra $50 per week after childcare and other expenses.
I never even thought about simplifying my life. I was just doing what everyone else was doing. You just coped the best you could.
I joke with my kids that if I had my time over again, they would be homeschooled. They laugh, probably relieved we can’t go back.
Dan and I don’t have nine-to-five jobs. In all honesty, Dan works more than that. But when going to work means walking down the hallway to his office, he doesn’t mind. There is no commute, no traffic and no one else to accommodate.
And he knows I’ve got the home front covered.
We are our own bosses. Our time is our own. Life is simple but it is also very rewarding.
Trust me, once you start culling things from your life and you have fewer things and more money, culling becomes addictive.
What could you cull today to make life easier?
I am always looking for ways to cut even more expenses from my life. If you have any ideas, quiz me by throwing comments down below.
I love a good challenge!
Cindy x