Minimalism is all about simplicity — whether you’re talking about the art form, musical genre, lifestyle, or philosophy. And when you embrace a minimalist lifestyle, it can reduce your financial challenges so that your goals become easier to fulfill.
Minimalist in Spirit
No matter how complicated your life seems at the outset, all you need is willingness: Sincere desire to simplify your life will make it easier to at least emulate the minimalist ideal.
Think of the spirit of minimalism and simply your interpretation of the meaning of the word minimalist. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the literal definition of minimalism, as that might intimidate you out of something that would otherwise liberate you.
In other words, don’t worry about a possibly obsolete stipulation that you need to own 100 or fewer things to be a minimalist: not even monks are that austere nowadays. Now that we’ve cleared that up, here’s how to minimize in a way that can maximize your savings.
Make a List
When in doubt, throw it out — but before you get to that point, you might need to start planning what to get rid of. Start making a list: survey every room of your home for things you haven’t used in a year or more and take note of them.
Just the act of writing down the things you might be able to get rid of should feel liberating. Let that feeling give you the momentum to keep jotting down more things you might be able to do without. Don’t worry if the list isn’t perfect. Instead, focus on making progress on an ongoing basis.
If making a list of things to get rid of seems daunting, you could do the inverse and ideally, it would become a shorter writing exercise: Make a list of what you deem most — things not to get rid of.
Only the Essentials
Lists of what to keep or toss can help you with another step toward simplification: Ask a close friend or relative to help you pare things down, and use those lists to reduce the number of times you will have to field questions about what to keep or toss.
While it might seem difficult to entrust any of this to a third party, he or she might be able to work faster by virtue of being detached from things. Yet it’s important that this person has a close relationship with you so that he or she isn’t too detached to be able to tell what matters most to you.
If at first, you can’t find someone to help you, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to become a minimalist all at once. Instead, vow to move in this direction on an ongoing basis and you right-size the entire undertaking.
Go 80-20
Apply the 80-20 rule to this undertaking: You can achieve 80% of the desired outcome by doing the 20% of the work that’s most critical. Actually, doing only that 20% might actually help you convince that friend or relative to help you after all.
Indeed, you might apply all of these principles to the rest of your life and see positive results. The more you right-size things in your life, the more open you become to other people and possibilities. You might also find your stress levels subside, and your health improves as a result.
Does that make minimalism more appealing to you, readers?
Jackie Cohen
Jackie Cohen is an award winning financial journalist turned turned financial advisor obsessed with climate change risk, data and business. Jackie holds a B.A. Degree from Macalester College and an M.A. in English from Claremont Graduate University.
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