Moving Overseas | The Minimalist Mom

It’s Okay To Experiment With Downsizing

May 9, 2012 By theminimalistmom 27 Comments

a window in my kitchen for the first time in a few years

I mentioned yesterday that we moved.

I would love to tell you it was to a micro-house. Six hundred square feet efficiently equipped for a family of three to work, live and play.

But it wasn’t. Not sure there is any such thing here on the Isle of Man.

What did we move into?

A renovated three bedroom flat in a very old building. I would guess it is somewhere between 1100 and 1200 sq ft. The building is 100+ years old. We’re on the top floor.

Why did we move?

We knew our first flat here wasn’t our forever Isle of Man home when we moved in. It was a case of choosing something fast out of limited stock. The plan was to move at the end of this summer but after keeping tabs on the rental market we knew it would challenging to find what we wanted for a specific date. This flat became available and we snapped it up.

Our last flat had some challenges for a family of three. The biggest was that the kitchen was enclosed and windowless. Not only was it a dreary place to cook but I was constantly battling safety issues. I either had to lock Henry out of the kitchen (only possible when husband was home) or let him in to play while I cooked. A small enclosed kitchen is not a safe place for a two year old to play.

Also, living without a freezer was no longer a fun challenge. Every other week we had at least one item of food waste (even with meal planning) that could have been avoided if we had a freezer.

The other challenge with our previous flat is that there wasn’t a desk, or space for a desk. My husband’s desktop computer took up half of our dining table. We considered buying him a small desk but there wasn’t an easy place to put one. The furniture in the small flat was house sized leaving very little floor space.

It’s okay to experiment with downsizing.

I don’t see this move to a bigger home as a failure of downsizing.

Rather, this was a chance to learn about what we’re comfortable living with and without.

We also know more about the housing and rental market after living here for almost a year. We know what area we want to live in and the types of housing available in that area. If there had been a suitable flat that was 800-900 sq ft we would have taken it but there wasn’t.

Our new home is a great fit for us: furnished, great location and those sea views that we love so much. We are also confident the owner won’t be selling the flat anytime soon. That was a constant threat in our last home.

Downsizing experiments = cash in hand.

Living in a small home for 11 months and negotiating a rent reduction saved us money. Our rent was below what we budgeted for and so were our utilities. We saved more money in the last year than we ever have before. A big part of that is being out of debt but another part of it was living smaller.

I think as a family we’re now open to the idea of radically downsizing for a short period of time to meet a goal. When we someday leave the Isle of Man I could see us living in something very small while we start new jobs or careers.

Has anyone tested the waters with downsizing only to turn back? The other things we have tried, and are still doing well with, are no car and no smart phones.

Filed Under: Getting Started, Kitchen, moving overseas, Storage

How To Have An (Almost) Stress Free Move

May 8, 2012 By theminimalistmom 31 Comments

Our new dining area. I'll never be tired of the view.

We moved homes the other week.

Change of residence ranks high on the Life Events Stress List. It’s between “Troubles with boss” and “Changing to a new school”.

For an additional challenge the move was planned for the week we returned from a long trip to Canada with a week in the Dominican Republic at the end of it. We were jet-lagged and weary even with our sun tans.

The week before we left for this long trip we were shooting a television show for three days. It was fun but tiring and I didn’t do much in the way of prep work for the move before we headed off island.

Yes, we set ourselves up for a stressful and tense move with our jet-lag, no preparation and a very short window for getting out of our old home, leaving it in good condition with all the linens washed and the walls free from toddler marks, and getting into our new place.

Despite the odds, it was the easiest move I’ve made so far. Note: I said easy. Not enjoyable.

Have less stuff. Really.

I packed up most of our stuff in an afternoon and then my husband and I finished packing and moved it all in one evening. Okay, the only furniture we own is a train table. That is a big one.

But, as someone with a lot of moves under my belt, I’ve found it’s rarely the furniture that does you in. It’s all the stuff in the closets and cabinets and kitchen drawers. It’s boxing all of it and moving all of it and then unpacking it.

In my athlete days I moved crossed country twice a year. My teammates and I lived out of a few duffel bags and some boxes of dollar store kitchen ware, drying racks for our spandex wardrobes and CDs (dating myself here). It was never the big stuff, the suitcases of lycra that did us in with the packing. It was the small things. It was the one off cheap bundt cake pan we bought and made one bundt cake with. It was the scores of CDs that we hadn’t listened to or the flimsy closet organizer we bought to get our clothes in order but never used.

It’s those little trinkets, not the bookshelf and the things you use everyday, that will have you wanting to curb your stuff during a move.

So get rid of it.

Get help.

With our laundry situation there was no way I could get all the linens – sheets, duvet covers, towels – washed and dried in 48 hours.

So I outsourced them. The laundry service did a bang up job and it took an item off my plate.

We also hired a sitter for the evening so Chris and I could make quick work of moving. The other cost, and this was a splurge in my jet-lagged stated, was a cleaner for our old place. They got the place spic and span in two hours and for a reasonable price. One of the benefits to living in an 800 sq ft apartment.

If you don’t have the funds to outsource a few things during your move ask family and friends to lend a hand. Find someone to watch the kids for an afternoon or friends over for a packing party and have some nice food and beverage on hand.

Less stuff = not needing professional movers = saving $.

Even with our outsourcing this move didn’t cost us anything close to the price of hiring professional movers or even what hiring a moving van + feeding friends beer and pizza would have cost. Our expenses for the move were: babysitter, linens, cleaner and fuel for the car our friends loaned us. In fact, the fuel was by far the most expensive piece of our move at £50 ($75) for half a tank of gas (for a sedan – I know, crazy prices over here).

In 2009 we made a very costly move when we sold our 598 sq ft condo and purchased an 1100 sq ft one. I was 8 months pregnant and my husband was away for stage one of the move. I packed up most of our apartment myself and we hired movers to come in and take everything to storage. Our new home was being renovated so for three weeks we rented a furnished condo. When our new home was ready the movers took everything out of storage, put it in a moving van, and brought it to our new place.

That move cost us thousands of dollars and was one of the most stressful times of my life. Every other day I went to the pharmacy to check my blood pressure fearing that I was developing pre-eclampsia. I was so on edge with the move, the logistics of it, the endless packing and the cash we seemed to be hemorrhaging from it, that I was worried my blood pressure was sky high.

Moving is never easy.

Even with less stuff and some help, I still found myself tired and grumpy by the last hour of the move. At 10pm I felt like leaving the last few things at our old place and getting them in the morning. All I wanted was my bed and sleep. Chris helped me shake it off and we took our last load of stuff, Chris’s guitar and the clothes hanging in our wardrobe, to our new home. It was well worth it to push on and wake up the next morning in our new place with the move done.

And unpacking? Pretty painless. One morning of work had most of our stuff in closets and we were ready to resume living a normal life (read: no takeout). This weekend I finally put away the last couple of boxes and our new place feels like home.

Anyone else have lessons from moving house?

Filed Under: etc, Furniture, Kitchen, moving overseas

Your Clutter Coach

May 7, 2012 By theminimalistmom 7 Comments

Source: theminimalistmom.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Sometimes you need more help than a book or a blog can give you.

Sometimes you need a friend to remind you to donate those bags of unworn clothing that are sitting in your basement.

Sometimes you need someone to make a plan for you, motivate you and keep you accountable.

Sometimes you need a Clutter Coach.

I get a lot of emails asking for help. I always respond (even it takes me a while) with advice, suggestion and encouragement.

And I always wonder, did they carve out a weekend to clean out that attic? Are they in the throes of home purging and feeling beaten by the process? Did they pull out some boxes from under their bed, lose a few hours looking through old junk, and then decide it was all too much work?

For some time I’ve wanted to help beyond the posts on this blog. Something very personal for paring down and living smaller.

A book wasn’t the answer. There are already some great books out there like Family-Sized Minimalism and Clutter Bootcamp for inspiration and how-to. A book can’t hold your hand, give you a kick in the butt or suggest another method for dealing with all that mail.

I want to do those things.

I want to see closets go from jam packed to roomy.

I want to help people get more sleep.

I want to find solutions for the mud room clutter that can be so hard to reign in.

So I’ve started something new.

Your Clutter Coach

This is for people that:

can’t make the time to declutter even after reading a lot of books and blogs on the subject
get sidetracked by old photos and trinkets every time they attempt to clean out the guest room
have pared down their stuff but it crept back quickly
need motivation and accountability to clear clutter for good

Your Clutter Coach is a personalized decluttering program. It’s tailored to your lifestyle, your needs and your schedule. It’s me kicking your butt and you kicking ass.

You can read more about the services here.

If you’re interested in the program I am currently giving away one free Four Week Clutter Coaching Program at Parenting with Crappy Pictures (if you haven’t visited this site before it is hilarious). The giveaway is open until Tuesday May 8th at 8pm PST. Head on over to read the details and enter.

PS. This will be the only time I mention Your Clutter Coach in a big post like this.

Filed Under: 2011 Challenge, Bathroom, books DVDs and media, car free, Clothing, DVDs, etc, Finances, Furniture, Getting Started, Gifts, giving, Guest Posts, Health, inspiration, Internet, Kids, Kitchen, Media: books, minimalist with kids, Minimize Yo Butt, moving overseas, Off Topic, One Simple Thing, paying it forward: wedding edition, Project 333, shopping mistakes, Storage, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

Could you inventory your whole home?

February 8, 2012 By theminimalistmom 24 Comments

Source: delicious-monster.com via Rachel on Pinterest

You guys are awesome.

A few times a week I get emails with great links to articles and videos about living in a smaller footprint. I can’t thank you enough. It’s hard to keep up with what is out there (and not be tied to a computer for many hours of the day) so having your eyes and ears out there listening and watching for me is a big help.

There have been quite a few interesting articles that I have found or have come my way and I wanted to share them with you. You never know what story or article will click and help you let go of some things, resist buying things you don’t really want or decide to make a big change like living in a smaller home or getting rid of the second car.

For the motivated: how to inventory your home. From Joanna, a piece in the NYT with app and software reviews for creating a home inventory. The one that is tempting me is Delicious Library. It’s software for Mac that would allow me to inventory everything we have. It even scans bar codes (!). We’re actually in a very sweet spot of not having a lot of stuff so it wouldn’t been the months on end project it would have been a year ago. Also, it would be really useful to have our possessions itemized for a future move.

For the window shoppers (online too): Why Pinterest May Actually Help Curb Shopping. Thanks to Aida for this one. If you’ve lost hours to Pinterest they may not all be bad. It seems Pinterest could actually quell your desire to buy rather than push you to break out the credit card. From the original Atlantic article:

Now that our economy has declined, we have less money available for unnecessary purchases and more people are realizing they need to consume less for economic and environmental reasons. I think it makes sense that we are seeing a rise in social-media services that allow us to enjoy hunting and gathering behavior without financial costs.

Of course, the other side to this story is that Pinterest has become a top traffic driver for retailers.

For those of us cutting back on screen time: Free E-book A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Digital Overwhelm. This book is a gem. Short, to the point and provides some good resources. Go grab it! And then sign up for The Big Unplug. I’ve added a sign up list and more details about my digital sabbatical campaign. You can also opt in for three or four days instead of the whole seven. I’ve set an ambitious (read: crazy) goal of getting 1000 people to sign up.

More good reads:

Kim from Little Stories had her Minimalist Playspace featured on Childhood 101. Looks great, Kim!
Linked to this video on Facebook the other day but here is the video + interview on the 90 Day Amish Project. This 24 year old copy writing student cut off tv, Internet and phone communication for three months. He did a lot of fun things during his digital sabbatical. Hope mine is the same. Thanks to Debbie for the link.

Feel free to link to any simple living or minimalist articles you found this week in the comments.

Filed Under: books DVDs and media, Clothing, DVDs, Furniture, Getting Started, Internet, Media: books, moving overseas, Technology

life as an ex-pat in the Isle of Man

January 18, 2012 By theminimalistmom 29 Comments

Dusk on the Promenade. That's Henry in the blue jacket.

Some of you have asked about our life over here and what the differences are between our life in Vancouver and our new home. Thought I would share a few things. Back to more minimalism and decluttering after this post.

Overall, the experience of moving overseas and settling into a small town has far outreached what we hoped for. It was a smooth transition, we like our city, Douglas, pop. 21,000, and we’ve made some great friends. Many times during the summer Chris and I would be walking along the Promenade and one of us would remark, this couldn’t have gone better.

It’s true.

While we feel very lucky to be here there are have also been some adjustments to our expectations. This is a small town. On an island. In the middle of the Irish sea. It’s different than our downtown life in Vancouver. Sometimes we’re not sure if things are very different because we’re in a small town on an island or because of the British-esque culture. It keeps us guessing.

No Starbucks. This fall I was desperate for a pumpkin spice latte. I ended up ordering a can of pumpkin online (almost $5 USD!!) and making one myself. It’s not that I really miss Starbucks, their coffee is just okay in my opinion, but I miss the availability and familiarity of them. Vancouver is said to have the highest per capita of Starbucks in North America (maybe even the world). They really are on every corner and sometimes even kitty corner to each other. I miss seeing them. The other thing I miss is a place for me to go and write for an evening. There just isn’t an option like that here. No chance am I going to a pub with my laptop.

We’re both speaking the same language but we can’t understand each other. The real Manx accent is thick. I once got so flustered about not being able to understand the grocery store cashier that I ended up leaving my bank card at the till. We have Irish friends and Aussie friends and English friends and all of that has helped me keep my ears sharp. There are also lots of different words for me to learn – dodee (pacifier), press (cupboard) – but most of them make sense in context.

Island life is slow. I have emailed a few businesses and either never received a reply or it came 3-4 weeks later. If you are dining out they won’t bring you the bill until you ask for it. Stark comparison to Vancouver where at the more busy restaurants they are handing you your coat and the bill as soon as they serve your post meal espresso. While it can be frustrating overall I really enjoy the change of pace. It’s not just the shops – people here lead slower lives too. They take their time, they seem to socialize more, greet each other more and I’m still flabbergasted by the number of non-seniors out walking their dogs on the beach at 4pm on a weekday. The Manx people know how to relax and enjoy the fresh air.

Island life is expensive. The other day we were in Marks & Spencer’s getting a few groceries. There was Chateaubriand in the meat case but I couldn’t find the price. Chris went to go ask the casher. £29.99 ($45 USD) for 750 grams (1.5 pounds) of beef. Yikes. We went with a pot roast instead. Not only are goods expensive but so are services like dry cleaning and babysitters. One surprising thing has been how expensive children’s classes are. The indoor play centre is almost £5 ($7 USD) per visit now that Henry is two. Our Friday morning movement and music class is £5.50. In Vancouver these types of classes would be half the price. My guess is that it has to do with the tax system here. Low taxes so very little funding for community groups.

While groceries are more expensive than the already expensive Vancouver we are finding we spend less here. There just isn’t that much to buy. Fits in quite well with our less stuff mantra.

There are a lot of white people here. Sorry, did that sound crude? I grew up in a city with a large immigrant population and there just aren’t a lot of people of different ethnicity here. It’s strange. I wonder a lot about what kind of effect it will have on Henry, seeing all these faces so like his own. I was reading this post from Lauren about Talking about race with (white) kids and it really got me thinking about different ways to talk to Henry about this in the future.

Related to lots of white people: not a lot of ethnic food options. We’ve had some great Indian food on the Isle of Man and the best Thai food of my life from this place down the street that opened a few months ago. There is a cool delivery pizza place that runs on Friday and Saturday nights with very nice Italian thin crust pizzas (trying to stay away from gluten so no pizza for me!). Otherwise, it’s a lot of sausage baps and fish and chips. There is very little in the way of quick ethnic food at a good price. No Greek, Japanese, Lebanese or Mexican food. There are a couple of Chinese restaurants but we have been warned that they aren’t great.

Overall, this isn’t a big deal, we don’t like to eat out a lot anyways, but it does occasionally remind you how far away you are from your hometown. I miss you dynamite rolls, chicken shwarma and burritos.

It’s beautiful. Some days it feels like we are on vacation. The rugged cliffs and the sea and how quaint and Victorian the houses are – it makes a simple walk feel special. And that doesn’t get old.

Any ex-pats out there? I would love hear from others that have made a big move and how you adjusted.