Maximum Gratitude, Minimal Stuff

It's the time of year when families are anticipating the summer break with no school and long, hot hours of free time. We all know that a vacation can be very expensive, but perhaps you've saved and have a plan to pay for that special trip.  However, weekend activities are often not so carefully planned, even though it's possible to spend several hundred dollars in a couple of days.  Families eat out more on the weekend than during the week.  Add a visit to the movie theater, amusement park, or the mall, and weekend spending goes even higher. So the No Money Weekend suggested by Trent Hamm at thesimpledollar.com caught my eye.  The challenge is to spend no money at all... so there are no snack or coffee runs, and no driving beyond the gas in your tank.  You use food from your pantry, items you already own, free events and services, the company of other people, and your own ingenuity. Today I'm posting 15 ideas that families might use to meet this chall...

Does a minimalist home create children who remain minimalists as adults?   That's an important question .  Can you successfully transmit your religious beliefs to your children?  Your ethical practices?  Can you build bonds of love and respect that last through generations?  These are the "same" questions, aren't they? The answer seems to be "Often, but not always." An anonymous reader was curious about this after reading an earlier post about toys : I have two small children myself and my story resembles yours in so many ways....  How [do] your kids feel about this change today?  Do they remember?  Do they hold any grudge against you for introducing them to minimalism or are they thankful?  Are they minimalist themselves today? I left a quick reply to this reader from Norway: My kids are not minimalists....  They do remember, and they've never expressed any grudges about having fewer toys.  I think I became better at choosin...

When our children were 9 and 12, we embarked on a very ambitious read-aloud project.  My husband and I had been fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings * since we each read the epic in our teens.  In anticipation of the release of Peter Jackson's film, The Fellowship of the Ring , we wanted to reread the entire work, and also give our kids the chance to experience the novel as Tolkien created it, before their imaginations were influenced by the film interpretation.   And so we committed to spend approximately one hour each evening, all through the summer and fall of 2001, reading aloud that massive and beautiful saga. * This blog is reader-supported.  If you buy through my links, I may earn a small commission. It was a test of skill and stamina – but so worth it! I did the bulk of the performance, since I am the more dramatic reader and can do "voices."  And it was a performance – a demanding test of my fluency, expressiveness, and stamina.  My...

With childhood obesity on the rise, modern-day food gurus encourage home cooking.  Michael Pollan, author of  Food Rules: An Eater's Manual ,* and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman both urge parents to cook from scratch with fresh ingredients.  Magazines such as  Good Housekeeping  and television personalities like Rachael Ray offer practical cooking advice, publishing recipes for slow cooker meals and 30 minute meals.  Michelle Obama emphasizes the role that mothers play in helping children make healthy choices. *  This blog is reader-supported.  If you buy through my links, I may earn a small commission. The message is that good parents, particularly  good mothers , cook for their families. Cooking isn't always a joy. While Pollan and others idealize a time when people grew their own food and sat around the dinner table eating it, they don't mention the effort that goes into planning, making, and coordinating family meals.  Co...

My husband and I live in a 700 square foot (about 65 square meter) apartment.  When people come over, they always remark that it's so clean.  I actually think they mean tidy and clutter-free.  But having things put away makes it seem clean.  Honestly, if you stopped by my house unannounced, most of the time I could invite you in and not be at all embarrassed.  That's liberating. When our children were young, we lived in a house that was about 1,100 square feet (about 102 square meters).  Compared to the average American home, that's small, but my house was usually fairly tidy then too, even though we homeschooled.  Yes, we had art supplies and science projects and many, many books.  The kids played epic pretend games with dolls, stuffed animals, play dishes, dress-up clothes, Lego creations, and lots of homemade props, but we could still make the house "company ready" in a pretty short time.   Does that sound like an impossible dream? Th...

A young couple I know went into debt preparing a designer nursery for their first child.  At a baby shower for this young mama-to-be, gifts included dozens of cute but fussy newborn-size outfits (too many to wear before they were all outgrown), miniature patent leather shoes, two baby monitors, a white noise machine, a wipe warmer, and an elegant pram-style stroller that was very heavy to lift and probably too large to fit into the trunk of a car. Family and friends were eager to welcome the new baby and wanted to show their love by giving gifts.  But the cute gadgets and clothes, though fun to shop for and to give, weren't really going to meet the baby's needs.  Expensive clutter had been given in place of useful necessities, which would still need to be purchased. What a minimalist baby needs Giving birth and caring for a newborn are wonderful but stressful activities.  Why add debt and clutter to sleep deprivation and first-time-parent anxiety? Obviously, a baby n...

Just as more and more adults today are proudly wearing the badge "BUSY," so are more and more children.  Too busy to stop, engage with others, listen, observe, pay attention, reflect, imagine, or properly rest.  Those kids are missing a lot. Today we think we have to multi-task, be on the go, and  push  to have a valuable life.  We teach our children that they have to do the same – reach for the proverbial stars, or be doomed to a second-rate existence.   We use social media to advertise our successes, making sure our activities, achievements, vacations, and celebrations will be envy-worthy.  What a false and dangerous pursuit.  As a result we're anxious, acquisitive, insecure, and unsatisfied. Do yourself and your family a huge favor.  Resist the pressure to let your schedule become non-stop hectic.  Let minimalism help you  decide what you really value , so you can limit your commitments and your child's commitments to what's...

Let's talk about one of the big traps of lifestyle inflation.  Blogger Trent Hamm calls it "the repeated splurge." Let's say there's a particular treat you enjoy.  Maybe you like buying books.  Maybe you like going to the coffee shop.  Maybe you like going to the movies, or eating out.  Whatever it is, when your income is low, you can't do it very often.  It's a splurge, so you look forward to it.  It feels special. When your income goes up, it's very tempting to indulge in that treat more often.  The problem is that as soon as a splurge becomes a regular event, it stops being special and becomes completely ordinary.  You adapt.  Something you used to think was a great treat is now just an everyday routine… except now the everyday routine is far more expensive than it used to be.   Do you see what happens?  You think that being able to pamper yourself more often makes life better.  But you're not any happier, you're...

Minimalism is not just for nomadic bachelors and downsizing seniors.  It's for everyone, including families with children.  In fact, the more people who live in your house, the more freedom and relief you'll feel with minimalism. Where I started In 1995, I was a typical American mom.  My kids got toys on their birthdays, on their half-birthdays, at Christmas, on Valentine's Day, in their Easter baskets, on the first day of summer – and sometimes at other times too.  I didn't think I was spoiling them, since we knew several families whose kids got a toy every time they went to McDonald's, Target, or even the grocery store.   The fact that my kids' toys covered the floors of their bedrooms and half the living room as well seemed a normal part of family life.  And me yelling at them to put their toys away?  That was a normal part of life too. It wasn't a pleasant part of life, and of course my kids didn't like it either.  One day I had really...