John ⁽¹⁵⁾

I've been a minimalist in the making for many years now. I grew up in a house with an overwhelming amount of stuff. I always tried to have my bedroom as neat & tidy as possible as a child, and would often base my room on the IKEA catalogue. It was like a showroom for many years. As I hit my teenage years this all went out of the window. Hormones took over & I would rather sleep or spend time with friends than spend time organising and culling my belongings. It was only when I started living in rented…

For a long time I've been seeking value & validation in the wrong places. I thought that to be successful you had to have a fancy job title, great salary, fancy cars & a nice house. I worked hard to educate myself to a high standard. I have two university degrees (A Masters & a bachelors). Up until a few years ago I lived in a four bedroom town house. I drove a Mercedes. I bought all of the latest gadgets & gizmos. Rather than feeling validated with all this stuff & achievement, I felt lost. I felt like I…

I've been thinking a lot lately about consumerism, marketing & waste. We are being sold things constantly, whether online, on billboards or TV & radio marketing. I think a lot of us feel immune to it by now, but the fact is, the ads stick in your head. Think about it, how many times have you seen an ad for a new car, or a new laptop or something else shiny and actually thought to yourself "I'd like a new one of those"? Seriously, we all do. I am exactly the same, I always get sucked into car adverts in…

Debt is something we all encounter at one point in our lives. Be it credit card debt or student debt. Most of us will need to get a mortgage at some point & most will rely on credit to buy a car. I've had debt for a long time, first I was given a credit card at 18 when I first applied for a student account. At that point I was also given an £1800 interest free overdraft. I didn't apply for this overdraft, or require it but I kept it simply because at that age I didn't know any…

I've been thinking about starting this blog for a long time. A lot of the principles & steps I will talk about have been in motion for a few years now but I'm far from finished. The purpose of this blog is to share with you ideas, plans, tips & tricks to de-stress, de-clutter & simplify every aspect of modern life. I've lived a few lifetimes it feels in my 32 years on this planet, and I can already look back and glean great wisdom from those lifetimes. I've made huge mistakes, but I've always managed to learn from them.