For a long time I was following that pattern. The first few times I moved house as an adult I only needed the space in a car to transfer my belongings, as time went on that car became a few car trips, then small transit vans and finally large removal vans. At the same time, the size of my property was also increasing. We started out in a tiny 1 bedroom top floor apartment which was owned by family, sparsely furnished and housing only our most important possessions (which at the time where are only possessions).

Our next apartment was even smaller, it was essentially two rooms in a converted Victorian house in Manchester, which had both been split in two, giving us a small living room & galley kitchen downstairs, a small spiral staircase in the living room went up to a small bedroom and tiny bathroom. We physically couldn’t fit much into that space & as a result we had the bare essential items. We didn’t feel deprived & the rent was so cheap. Our bikes were locked in the communal hallway & as the rent was so cheap, we really did exactly what we wanted with our lives.

Fast forward a few years and we progressed to a bigger 1 bedroom apartment, then onwards to a 2 bedroom house, then to a 3 bedroom house before finally moving into a 4 bedroom town house with garage and driveway. We haven’t had children and our core belongings haven’t changed. We still value our computers, cooking equipment, books and media centre, but the space had allowed us to accrue a load of extras. We had extra seating in the living room in the form of massive armchairs & sofas (for guests). We had a huge dining table to seat 6 people (we are still a family of 2). A garage full of rarely used tools, a spare bedroom, another bedroom used as a dressing room. Another bedroom used as a study and 3 bathrooms. Things where completely out of control. We where earning more money than when we lived in that first 1 bedroom apartment but we had next to no disposable income, the rent was almost triple & we had run up debts.

At this time a very close friend of mine was emigrating to New Zealand. He had been travelling for around a year and had seen a lot of Europe and ended up over in Australia & NZ. While in New Zealand he had made some good contacts & did some voluntary work at a maker space. He had decided to take up an offer of employment at the maker space in Wellington & with a bit of planning was ready to go. I was really sad to see him go, we have been close friends forever but this move was a positive step for him & the lessons learned helped me inadvertently.

On the morning he was leaving, I offered to take him to the train station to start his long journey to a new life on the other side of the globe. When picking him up I was shocked & intrigued by the fact he only had his travelling backpack & a small hold all. I don’t know why, but I expected this move to be like all of my moves. Surely all of his stuff was being shipped over. That wasn’t the case, he was literally starting a new life with only the things he could carry.

For some reason that really resonated with me.

I guess we both had similar upbringings & we both seem to have an issue with being tied to anything for too long. Be that work, a location or a routine. We always seem to change things up & make drastic moves or changes. He has always been a bit of a minimalist. Never owning much stuff, never buying into the latest crap. He even held off buying a mobile phone for years & always seemed to have money. Probably, because while we were busy buying rubbish, he was saving.

Suddenly I realised that if he could start a new life with only his most important & personal items, I could slim down my life to a much more manageable level & start to downsize property & belongings. It didn’t take long.

Within a few months I’d given notice on our 4 bedroom house, sold my fancy car, sold off a ton of the extras we had acquired, donated most of my clothing & started culling every aspect of my life. Within a few months everything was sold, the house was gone & we filled a small 80sqft storage unit with our entire life. We moved in with family for a year to clear off the debts we had run up over 10 years of ‘maximum-ism’. Each day we paid off a bit of debt & regained some of our old spirit. After a year, we had paid off almost £18K & bought a tiny 11 year old Fiat Panda car. It was the start of a new chapter in our life.

The next step was to move to a new property. We found a lovely church conversion in Cornwall which was 350 miles away from where we lived. Within a month we had moved in. It’s a modest two bedroom property. One bedroom is our work office and the smaller room is our actual bedroom. It has one bathroom, one living room & a kitchen.

We are still on our Minimalism journey. Just last week I bought a kindle so I could start to give away my physical book collection & move to a much lighter digital library. All of my music is digitised & we only use streaming services for movies now so no DVD’s. I do most of my work (including writing these posts) on an old Thinkpad X200 laptop I got on eBay for £50. Before it would have been the latest & greatest Macbook. This U-turn was life changing & in part I need to thank my friend for showing me the true value of stuff in your life & how it can hold you back. If he could make a new life in a new country without all the trappings of his old life, so can I.

Minimalism is definitely something I would recommend if you have itchy feet & constantly like to be on the move. My boredom threshold is quite low & routine while useful, tends to stifle me. I like to change things up constantly. Becoming minimalist allows me to do this with much more ease. When we moved down to Cornwall I still felt like we had too many belongings. We filled a van & the panda to get down here. It’s definitely a work in progress & I would expect that most minimalists are in constant review of their belongings. We are still sorting & downsizing & we aim to pay off all remaining debts & move to Amsterdam in the next 12 months. Following in the footsteps of my friend, we may not move with just a backpack and hold all, but it certainly won’t be any more than what we can fit in the car. This prospect really excites me.

The friend in question is still one of my closest, we talk often on Skype & Whatsapp & I’m hoping as my downsizing & simple living continues, I’ll be able to afford the air fare to go & see him in his new surroundings. We haven’t seen each other since that morning at the Train Station & it would be great to see inside each others lives again. To meet his new friends & family. The day is fast approaching when that will become reality. He also currently works at a micro brewery in Wellington, so that can only mean good times, right?

If you are new to Minimalism, feel free to ask me any questions in the comments below. If you are experienced, why not share some of your best advice with new readers.

Back in 2008 I read Sold Out by Robert Llewellyn and it got me even more interested in the minimalist movement. The book is about Robert giving up buying anything for a whole year. It’s a great read & I even did this myself after reading the book. My wife also got on board with the minimalism thing & we started to slowly downsize our belongings.

We have kept this up over the years & while not hardcore minimalists, we where able to move house this time with a single van. Some of the things we have done are as follows.

Media – We no longer buy any physical media, be that DVD or Blu Ray, Music CD’s or books. Our collection used to be massive, we had over 1000 movies on DVD which took up loads of space. We donated a lot to charity & sold the rest of our DVD collection to pay off some debts. We now only use streaming media, be that through the Apple TV, Kodi on the Raspberry Pi or the various catch up TV services. This means we have cleared out a load of our belongings in one go, removing the need for storing it & meaning we can live in a smaller place. The same goes for books. We donated the majority of our books, only keeping our absolute favourites & now we tend to read ebooks on the kindle. Our music collection has been digitized for many years and we also take advantage of Spotify free streaming for any music not in our own collection.

Paperwork – With the exception of ID, such as Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates and passports, we have pretty much destroyed our entire paperwork stash. We used to have a 3 drawer filing cabinet fill of bank statements and other paperwork. We switched our bank statements to online only, as culled the rest of the paperwork stash. We followed Rachel Aust‘s suggestion of keeping only essential paperwork in a small plastic wallet & either scanning receipts for business or throwing them out. We went from a massive filing cabinet to a plastic wallet. It saves a ton of storage space & the weight reduction is insane (you should try moving house with 10+KG of paperwork).

Magazines – Magazines used to be a real problem for us. I would buy tech magazines and car magazines whilst my wife was obsessed with fashion & beauty magazines. We spent a small fortune on them, they filled so many boxes when it came to move & we couldn’t throw them away due to some sense of value in them. We had over 100KG of magazines and we sent them all off for recycling. We now read them in coffee shops or stick to read decent blogs & news sites. Magazines are one of the biggest enemies of The Minimalist and quickly accumulate all over your home. They also cost so much money. If you can, drop the magazine subscriptions and source your information on free websites.

Clothing – We have simplified our wardrobe massively. My wife & I share a single clothes rail & a small 3 drawer chest of drawers for all of our clothes. Outdoor coats are kept on a hook in the kitchen & we only have a few pairs of shoes each. I normally have a pair of new trainers, an older pair of trainers & smart shoes. If I replace the new trainers, they become the old trainers and my old trainers are thrown out. The shoes are only used a few times a year & kept for weddings & special events. I used to own 90+ T-shirts, I now own 10. The same goes for underwear. I have 7 pairs of socks & 7 boxers. They too work on a one in one out basis. This saves me a fortune on clothes shopping and also means I can happily replace anything that is worn out without feeling guilty. It’s also much easier when your clothes as a couple pack into two suitcases.

Technology – This is still my biggest vice, but I have cut down a lot. I recently sorted through my old tech & donated 3 whole bin liners full of old wires, chargers, routers and similar tech items. I now have my iMac as my main machine, my X200 laptop as my Linux machine, iPhone 6 as my phone and an iPod 5th Generation which I adore. Apart from that we have the TV,  Apple TV,  Xbox one and Raspberry Pi media centre. My wife has her Kindle, Macbook and iPhone 4. Tech is the one thing that can really help a minimalist. My iPhone is also my e-book reader, my calendar, my camera, Digital wallet, Music collection using iTunes Match. Same with my iMac. I use it to watch TV, Movies, Listen to music & work. When it comes to Minimalism & tech I think as long as each piece of tech serves a unique purpose, and there is no overlap, you can keep it. But if you never use it, why not donate or sell it? It will save space & give someone else the opportunity to use it.

Furniture – We used to have quite a bit of furniture, most of the useless stuff was classified as ‘guest’ furniture. We had Spare beds, spare pillows, spare chairs. You name it we had extra stuff as if two more people lived with us. This had to change so a year or so ago we sold off the extra furniture. We sold arm chairs, mattresses, beds, dining chairs, plates, cutlery. In fact anything that wasn’t used by the two of us on a regular basis had to go. We now only have well used & functional furniture. This works much better for us & the rooms in our home feel bigger & lighter.

Cars – We used to own big, flash cars. The last car we owned was a Mercedes C class estate. It was spacious & luxurious. It was expensive & massive for the two of us. We decided to sell the car and try to live without one. We lived without a car for 7 months & it was liberating, but we decided a compromise was needed. Before we had cars we lived in City Centre Manchester. We did everything on foot or on public transport. It worked because we could get a taxi to the airport, or walk to the train station and get a train. We never needed a vehicle and it never seemed like an issue. Since moving out of a city it’s more of a requirement. For now, we live very rurally and it would take us hours to complete the most basic of tasks. We therefore bought a tiny, used, 2004 Fiat Panda. It’s bright blue & perfect for the two of us. It’s so cheap to run, tax & insure and it lets us do everything we could in the Mercedes for a fraction of the cost. We put perhaps £30 of fuel in each month and the Road Tax & Insurance is only £300 per year for both of us. When we move back to a city I’ll switch back to a bike or a scooter but for now, this is the best compromise.

There are loads of minimalist things you can adopt in your life. I fancied getting into the 100 things camp, where you only own 100 items. Maybe in the future I’ll pursue this, but the key is to find what works for you. I find I have more money to play with. We don’t tend to bring anything new into the house unless it’s replacing something worn out (with the exception of food & drink). It also means we don’t have to earn as much money to live this way, freeing up time for ourselves. That is one surprising benefit of minimalism. Living this way also means our physical footprint is getting smaller. We could feasibly move into a tiny apartment next time we move, and not even fill it. Minimalism becomes quite addictive. In the modern world, so much of what once was physical is now digital. This means you don’t have to do without your entertainment, you just don’t need to have physical copies clogging up your space. It essentially means we all have endless storage space for that kind of stuff (not that I’m advocating digital hoarding).

I’ll go into more detail in future posts on each of the above points. I have so many more to cover in the future.

I have many inspirations for this kind of thing, but my main 3 would be Robert Llewellyn, Rachel Aust & The Minimalists Ryan & Joshua

Let me know your thoughts on this post, also if you have any tips or advice, share it in the comments below. It may help out some of the other readers of this blog.