Minimalist-ish Family Series: Shawna Scafe

Another family of five in my series featuring Minimalist-ish families. Happy to feature Shawna and her lovely family – I’ve been following her on Twitter and Instagram where she shares real life snap shots of trying to make things simple with three kids.

1.) Tell us about your family, who you are, where you live and things that you love:

We are a family of five living in small town BC. Our kids are 5,4 and 2 – my husband works shift work and I stay home with the kids then work a couple days when he is home. We are a family that loves kitchen dance parties, picnics at the park, friends over for BBQs, and waffles for breakfast.

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2.) When did you first hear about minimalism and what was your initial reaction?

I first heard about it a few years back. I followed a woman on Instagram who had just read The Joy of Less and she shared some of her thoughts on purging her kitchen. After growing up in a home where there was clutter on every surface, it brought up so many emotions to see someone else saying that ‘it doesn’t have to be what it’s always been’.
Once I saw that instagram post I bought The Joy of Less, read it in two days and then took pictures of my entire home as it was and started the purging process. Like many Canadian women, I had been raised to go to school, to get the good job so you could make the money so you could buy the things. I had also been raised to see ‘things’ take over a space and make it unusable and chaotic. With all the emotions I felt when I first heard about minimalism, they were all centered around feeling hope and freedom.
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3.) What do you find most challenging in trying to live with less stuff?
The biggest challenge has been keeping it like this. Of course, it is tough with three small kids to keep ‘the creep’ of more toys and books and clothes from coming in. But a level beyond that is keeping myself organized. Once I have purged a room or drawer, it takes discipline to always tidy up before things become a dumping grounds again. I was surprised at how easy it was to purge things, but keeping them in order has been the thing I need to be consistently working on.

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4.) What do you find most rewarding in trying to live with less stuff?

I could write forever about the benefits. I guess that is why people who start ‘minimalism’ generally continue with it for their lives. I love that we save money, and can actually use the space we have for play and entertaining instead of storage. Most of all, I love that it has given me a satisfaction that I am living a life based on the things I value most, rather than the things that have the most monetary value. I have been paying attention to my heart, we have set goals as a family and we only invest our time, money and space into those things. It’s a lot less pressure, even if it is counter-culture.
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5.) Do you see any challenges (older, bigger kids, retirement, etc) to continuing on with this lifestyle in the future?
Living with less has really felt like freedom to me and though my husband does it his own way, he is very appreciative of the changes he has seen in our home, my spending, my gratitude and how we spend our days. I don’t foresee challenges for him and me in how we live more simply. I DO see challenges in how my kids will learn to live more simply. When I started minimalism I could purge their toys without hearing a word from them. Now they are old enough to do it themselves. I really hope I can empower them to follow their own values in life with how they use their time and money and space – rather than giving into that cultural pressure to live a lifestyle that can look good on the outside but becomes a monotonous wheel.
Thank you Shana! So many of your reasons for wanting to simplify are the same as mine. Also: the future hurdles! I wonder all the time how we will manage teenagers and their stuff.
  • Space for play instead of storage – that sums up a minimalist life properly. At this point in our lives we are living out of backpacks, carrying everything that we own, still trying to find that one place to call home. The journey is different for each and every one of us, but minimalism is catching on. Keep raising those kids of yours with a sense of freedom and happiness!

  • This is an interesting pattern I read ALL the time on blogs about minimalism with families. We homeschool too with a semi large, young family and are minimalists almost out of necessity… I wonder if it has anything to do with moms being homemakers because we’re actually living common life in our houses? We don’t clean up then come back hours later to a cleaned home. It’s a mess again instead LoL! If you’re gone most of the day you can get away with owning more because there isn’t time for kids to dump everything needed for life onto counters, tables etc. School is making lunch and cleaning the dishes and floor and chairs… and they dont need to clean up the school books and crafts before lunch is made to eat on that table. In a school it’s all seperate and someone else is doing the cleaning! We live and learn in the same space and we must clean it. You can see readily how that can lead to minimizing! Haha

  • Thanks so much for the series – i have really enjoyed reading the articles and seeing all the photos. It’s interesting to see how other people manage a minimalist lifestyle, especially with small children. I do think that if you raise your children to be minimalists, and explain why, they will continue to value that lifestyle. We have 2 sons, age 26 and 15, and they are both minimal, especially compared to their peers.

  • I love this series! It’s so great to see some real families living out minimalism. We are a homeschooling family of six with four kids aged 7,5,3 &1. We live and school in a tiny 800 square foot home that we share with my sister. People are always amazed at how we are able to live and learn in such a small space and even more so when they see how simple and uncluttered it can be. It is a challenge in our small home and homeschooling takes that up a notch with all the curriculum and books, but I don’t feel that we lack anything that we truly want or need living here. It certainly forces one to be mindful and intentional about what we allow into our home. One blogger I read likened it to “curating” a fine collection and I love that analogy. We strive to keep only the best toys, tools, literature, curriculum, etc. and pass along the rest. Can’t wait to see more families, it’s very inspiring!

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