We watched the documentary Minimalism last night on Netflix. It was not earth-shattering for us because we have already begun to minimize our lives, but it did reinforce the decisions we have made and are making in our lives.
We have two suitcases and four backpacks worth of stuff with us right now in Nicaragua. We have been gone for six months and have not acquired a lot of new things. Living with less has made us feel light and free. The kids occasionally say that they wish they had more toys, but they barely play with the toys they do have.
When we were getting our house ready to rent out it was a daunting task. We lived in that house for 10 years. The closets were packed with things, many of which we had not seen or used in 10 years. It took several months to sort through it all and some of it was hard to let go. The question ‘what if I need this?’ was constantly gnawing at us as we were donating and throwing things away.
We did store some things in Atlanta, but it is hard for us to remember what most of those things are. We have not missed them.
This is what we have with us:
- Less than 30 pieces of clothing each (including shoes and underwear).
- Baseball gloves and a ball, a soccer ball, a football, and a frisbee. The frisbee is really the only item that has gotten much use.
- A few toy cars and Beyblades the boys packed in their backpacks.
- Technology (laptops, phones, kindles, and accessories)
- Toiletries and medicine- Tylenol is the only medicine we have used, and you can get most other medicine here easily and cheaply.
That is all we have. What else do we need? Not any of the other things we had sitting around our house. We rent furnished places that have kitchen gadgets, beds, and sheets. We buy perishable things like soap and sunscreen as we need them. We take pictures and we have this blog and our YouTube channel for memories. We have never been into collecting art and other knickknacks.
Living in San Juan Del Sur, we are sheltered from the disease that is consumerism. There are no big box stores here. We have been to Walmart in Managua and it was a shock to our system.
We are buying more time now instead of more things. Living with less has made us exponentially happier and we are going to continue to live this way.
