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on not caring about what other people think

October 13, 2011 By 85 Comments

Source: etsy.com via Kylie on Pinterest

 

A few months ago I wrote a post about traveling ‘lite’ with a toddler and got a well written but negative email response. The writer eloquently told me to stay home or leave my son with a relative. He told me in no uncertain terms that other travelers did not appreciate young children and that my child was too young to appreciate travel.

My face actually flushed with embarrassment reading the email.

It’s hard not to care about what other people think of you.

Hard but required if you want to make some against the grain choices like living with less stuff.

I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while now and why the many choices we have made in the last year or so are now just a part of our lifestyle. Why haven’t we gone back to shopping? Why haven’t we reverted back to buying more and upgrading? Why haven’t we moved into a bigger and nicer home? We’re out of consumer debt and have the means. Everyone we know here on the island has a bigger home than us and at least one car. We’re definitely an outlier model in our circle of family and friends.

One reason we’ve stayed the course: we don’t care what other people think.

I don’t say that in a harsh way either. I do listen to the opinions of people close to me and my family. I listen and I know that we’re on different paths. Our choices work for our family and their choices work for them. Neither of them is better than the other just different.

Rayna over at the Suburban Minimalist is back to blogging (yeah!) and had a wonderful post the other day about developing a thicker skin. She writes honestly about being a sensitive soul and worrying about the reactions of others. Her follow up here is also worth a read.

I’m in complete agreement with Rayna that one of the greatest ways to stop caring about what other people think is to realize, they probably aren’t thinking about you at all. Most of us have our head down and are fairly absorbed with our own goings on. We barely notice if a friend got a hair cut or if there’s a stain on their shirt. Make the connection: if you’re not thinking about them, they’re probably not thinking about you.

So what do you do when someone does provide their negative opinion about your choice? I usually just let it be. I’m not going to change anyone’s mind that is already made up. So instead of getting defensive or hurt I just let it go. Once you get into the habit of not caring it’s easy.

Not caring made it easy to shrug off a comment from a neighbor that we shouldn’t be living in a small flat with a toddler.

Not caring made it easy to just say “we’ll see” when a local shop owner told me we wouldn’t make it through the winter without a car.

It also helps that I have a small circle of friends. Both here on the island and that I stay in touch with through email and on Skype. I quit Facebook and that helps too. I’m in touch with people that I have a close relationship. They care about me. I’m not sitting through coffee with a Frenemy and seething at the veiled insults being doled my way.

Another thing: I’m older. I’m more confident in who I am, what I want and what makes me happy. I’m still not immune to snarky comments or cutting remarks but it’s much easier to not let them bother me too much. Because worrying about those things and putting energy into them is a waste of my valuable time.

After reading that not nice email telling me to stop including Henry in our travel plans I did not print it out, or reply, or reconsider my plans of a family tour of Turkey this spring.

I deleted it.

How do you deal with other people’s comments on your choices? Do you laugh them off, cry or barely notice them? Has anyone had negative comments about their choice to live with less stuff?

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Filed Under: inspiration

10 minimalist (but fun!) ideas for your child’s birthday party

October 10, 2011 By 30 Comments

My baby is almost two.

Though he’s not really a baby anymore. He drinks out of a cup and is tall enough to open doors all by himself. But he’ll always be my baby, right? I mean, I’m 33 and I’m still my mom’s baby.

Last year we had a very low key celebration for Henry’s first birthday. The highlight was the two monkey cakes I made. One big and one mini. No gifts. At least not from us. His Grandma’s are another story.

I’ve had a few requests for minimalist ways to celebrate kid’s birthday parties. Living with less doesn’t mean no fun or, you know, just a single candle on a dry biscuit for your seven year-old’s big day. But kid’s birthday parties can be a bonanza of gifts, useless loot bags and one off decorations that are destined for the recycle bin. They can also be really expensive.

My main advice: think activity, not stuff.

Here are a few minimalist-ish ideas of themes and activities for birthday parties:

 

 

Toonie party. What is a toonie you ask? It’s a Canadian two dollar coin. This is an awesome trend back in Vancouver (and maybe other Canadian cities?) where instead of bringing a gift for the birthday child, guests bring a toonie. After the party the child can use those dollars to go and pick out a toy or gift. Frugal fun and takes the focus off gifts and onto the party part of a the day.


 

Craft the party food. Again, take the focus off gifts and onto an activity. Decorate cookies, make fruit shish kebabs or, for the more adventurous or older children, involve them in a cooking activity. One of my favourites: make your own pizza. Pizza dough is dead cheap to make and loads of fun to play with.

 

Source: starpulse.com via Mary on Pinterest

Sing. It’s good for you. For young kids hit the favourites and for older ones consider finding a few new ones and handing out song sheets. Not up to leading the choir yourself? Source a leader from guests, or with younger kids, from parents attending. There’s a wanna be crooner in every crowd.

 

Source: weheartit.com via Rachel on Pinterest

 

Simple white lights. You probably have some tucked away for the holidays. Pull them out and plug them in. Easy and gives a celebratory air to any room. And way easier to clean up than streamers or confetti.

 

Scavenger hunt. Loves this idea for young kids to scavenger for colours. Kind of like Eye Spy. Scavenger hunts don’t have to be too elaborate, particularly for young children. It could be as simple as making name tags for each guest and hiding them around the yard or your home.

Source: trendhunter.com via Ritz on Pinterest

 

Make loot bags. If you’re stuck on the idea of a take away gift think about ways to make the gift interactive. Have guests decorate loot bags and pick their ‘loot’ from a small stash of treats and a few toys. Even better: make loot bags to tote home leftover cupcakes and party food.

 

 

Share decorations. If you want to use number appropriate decorations think about sharing, or borrowing, from another family. I’ve borrowed, and loaned out, cake toppers and other decorations before. It’s a great way to get more value out of single purpose items.

 

 

Dance. Maybe you don’t know the Macarena but you probably have a friend that considers themselves an expert. Have them lead your kids in a short dance lesson. Nothing cuter than five year-olds learning to two-step.

 

 

Games. Ummm… I love this one. Can’t wait for Henry and his friends to try and balance chocolate covered donuts on their foreheads. I’m sure there are loads of ideas out there for creating custom games, ideas that will have you up till four in the morning spray painting garbage cans and stenciling Harry Potter character names on to t-shirts. Personally, I’d prefer a game of croquet or donut balancing, and more sleep.

 

Source: unplggd.com via Rachel on Pinterest

 

Family far away? Go digital. I’ve decided we will stick with small family parties until Henry is school age. We have many years ahead of us of inviting the whole class over. So this year I sent out an e-vite to family and asked if they could be online at a certain time to say hello. We’ll be eating cake and Henry will open the gifts his Grandmas have sent. Gearing up to sing Happy Birthday five or six times.

What else? I would love to hear more ideas for simple yet fun kid’s birthday parties. Particularly for older children. Any parents of teens want to weigh in?

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Filed Under: Kids, minimalist with kids

Debt-free: now what?

October 8, 2011 By 48 Comments

Source: google.com via Johanna on Pinterest

 

It seemed insurmountable.

When we tallied it up in February of 2010 we had no idea how or when we would pay off $82,174 in debt.

The thing is, we could have put off writing our debts down forever. We weren’t living pay check to pay check and we paid all of our bills on time. We had available lines of credit and investments we could cash out if we ever got in a real bind. While our debt number was big our day to day checking account was always healthy and we never really felt a crunch.

But the numbers didn’t lie. There was a lot to pay off and we weren’t even sure where to start. At the time I was on maternity leave and Chris was self-employed. I received some maternity benefits, a little less than half of what I made at my job, and Chris had a very good, if erratic, income. We had some challenges in front of us.

Here is a breakdown of our former debt totals and monthly payments:

DEBT TOTAL PAYMENT
credit card 2000 *0% interest
credit card 1800 95
student loan 3315 59.76
student loan 5239 58.88
student loan 7000 114
investment loan 7700 218.51
line of credit 10000 35
credit card 14624 200
line of credit 15767 250
credit card 16729 200
82174 1231.15

How did we get there? A big move, my lingering student loans and continuing to live just a bit above our means. I could go into more detail but the long list of ways got there don’t matter. How we got out of it, and how we are continuing to improve our financial habits, is what really matters.

I will also say this: don’t judge your friends that are in debt. They don’t need it. They go to bed worrying at night and feel bad about every purchase. What they need is encouragement and a non-judgmental ear. They need support. They need to know there is a way out.

How did we get out of $82174 in debt? Day by day. Luck. Trying a lot of budgeting/financial tracking tools until we found one that works for both of us. Encouraging each other and talking to each other a lot. In the beginning Chris and I held financial meetings every Tuesday night. We tried to project cash flow and expenses and we prioritized debts. We reviewed our weekly spending and thought up strategies to do more with less money. We gave each other high fives and congratulatory text messages when a credit card was paid off.

We started a conversation about spending and our finances.

And the conversation hasn’t stopped.

Big purchases are discussed and debated. As I’ve mostly gotten over my emotional spending habits we can have pleasant conversations about who needs new wellies or if we have money in our household budget that month for an extra date night. There aren’t arguments about someone unexpectedly making a large purchase without telling the other.

We’re a team in this.

One of the greatest things to come from tackling this debt is a new level of connection with my husband. We’ve faced some daunting odds and supported each other on what seemed like a never ending road. On the other side of this debt we now have the fun task of discussing savings plans and strategies. What we once thought of as dreams are now goals.

I’ve had a lot of interest in our debt story and I want to point out that you can read all of our financial posts here in the financial section of the archives. I’m considering collecting the posts and writing a more in-depth guide to our debt, how we paid it off and strategies we used. That’s on my someday list for now as I am putting the final touches on The Minimalist Mom’s Guide to Baby’s First Year (which is going very well!).

What next?

I’m not sure how much of our finances I feel comfortable writing about here now that we are out of debt. Mostly because we’re in a really good spot and I don’t want to brag about that. We’ve worked hard but we’ve also been lucky. I know there are a lot of people that are working very hard to stay ahead of debt but aren’t so lucky.

But loosely we are planning to:

  • Build an Emergency Fund. This isn’t really an Emergency Fund but an International Move Fund. We know we’ll be heading back to Canada at some point and we want to have enough money for six months of living expenses and our plane tickets. Right now we’ve saved about half of what we think we will need.
  • Pay down our mortgage in Canada. We’ve just upped our monthly mortgage payments by 15%. This increases that gap between rental income and what our mortgage payments and condo fees are. So we’ll likely have to start sending a bit of money home in the New Year.
  • Save. For now we’re saving as much as we comfortably can. Retirement plans and projections will happen much later.
  • Give. We want to give more. This blog and my upcoming guide will be part of that. I’ll share more later when the book is ready.

We’ve thought about getting some financial advice from an expert. Does it make more sense to save than put money on our mortgage? Should we be putting our savings in accounts in Canada or here? We’ve thought about it but, really, we’ll probably do just fine by continuing to save and live below our means. Nothing fancy about that but it works.

I know that much like losing weight, paying off debt does not mean you will stay debt-free forever. My hope is that our live with less strategy, coupled with good financial habits, will keep us on the path.

Anyone else out there battling debt? What strategies are you using?

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Filed Under: Finances

living with other people’s stuff

October 3, 2011 By 27 Comments

 

It’s the kid’s stuff. Everywhere.

My husband – I just can’t get him on board with getting rid of things.

There are so many easy reasons to live with clutter and overstuffed closets.

By far the most common one I see: it’s not mine. A burning desire for a simplified home and possessions is rarely shared by the whole family.

We’re currently living in a furnished rental so, I get it.

When we first moved in I removed a bunch of appliances and cooking utensils from our kitchen. I created some ‘dead’ cupboards that are strictly storage for unused items. I rearranged the living room furniture and stored the nick knacks that weren’t our taste. I pulled down the ‘art’ and hung some of our framed photos. We settled into this place and the stuff that came with it.

It’s not ideal. I’ve spent so much time and effort getting rid of things and yet, here I am again dealing with a lot of stuff we don’t need. None of it is ours so donating it all it isn’t an option. After my initial work I’ve mostly just lived with it.

But I don’t have too.

There are a dozen glass tumblers. We only need four. There are huge main course plates untouched as the salad plates are large enough for meals. We have a lot more than we need.

But what do you do when you can’t get rid of stuff?

Hide it.

Designate out of the way and rarely used closets or, if you have one, your basement for storage. I’m going to take a few boxes of things down to the storage locker for the flat. Sure, it will be some work to pack up and itemize linens and random electrical chords that came with this place, but it will be worth it.

Forget about it.

If you can’t sell it on eBay at least you can put the clutter out of your mind. The low cupboards in our kitchen are stocked with owner’s rainbow coffee mug set and food canisters. I can’t do much about that so I avoid those cupboards and don’t think about their contents. I don’t let it bother me that our home here isn’t a ‘perfect’ vision for simple living. We’re still getting all the benefits of living with less: quick clean up, rooms that are relaxing to live in and money in the bank.

Enjoy it.

Find a room you can really have your way with and make it yours. It could be a den or bedroom. Maybe it’s your laundry room. If you can’t get a room take a closet. Heck, it could be your car. Clear it out, make it a peaceful space and savor it. You’ll likely find your family commenting on how nice the space is. Finding some allies in the war against clutter won’t be far behind.

Need more ideas for living with non-minimalists? Here is a piece from a few months back: When You’re Not Married to a Minimalist.

Oh, and they do come around. When I first started getting rid of things Chris was supportive but a bit skeptical. A year later and he’s on board. We just decided as a family to not buy a desk for his work computer. Our dining table will continue to double as a work space and dining space.

Anyone else have ideas for living with your children’s, spouse’s or roommate’s stuff? I know it’s a tough one.

Like what you read here at The Minimalist Mom? Sign up by RSS or Email to get posts delivered to you. You can also find The Minimalist Mom on Facebook. Comments are always read, appreciated and responded to – even if we don’t agree on the subject at hand.

 

 

 

 

 

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