Living a simpler life

I still find myself thinking about Frugal For Life’s entry on Tiny Rooms, Tiny Homes. I’ve been doing a number of google searches for pictures and stories from people living in houses made by Tumbleweed Homes (I’m not coming up with much).

I’m not sure why the idea of living in a tiny home fascinates me so much. Part of it, I’m sure, is my love for boxes and containers and the idea of everything having its own little place. I think the other part is that I’m always fascinated by the idea of simplifying my life.

I am very much aware that I have packrat tendencies. Not to any extreme, but I have trouble getting rid of things. “I might need that later!” For example, I’m working on weeding out my closet. I tried the “backwards hangar” trick, where you put all the hangers on the rod backwards, and then when you wear something, you put it back with the hanger on the other way. I have maybe worn 25% of what’s in my closet. Of course, I started this last fall, and a number of the things still unworn are summer clothes, but I think it’s time to weed out the winter clothes at the very least. I came across one shirt the other day that I’ve struggled to get rid of. It’s gorgeous, but not so much gorgeous on me. Clearly, I would benefit from donating this. And yet I hang on to it.

Another example: I buy McCann’s Irish Oatmeal. It comes in beautiful cans. I buy the cans in lots, so I get a pretty decent discount. In my cabinet, I currently have four empty cans stacked up because I can’t get rid of them. They’re so neat looking! They would look great with plants in them! The odds of me ever doing this? Slim to none. While I won’t ever be able to bring myself to recycle them, I can probably find some crafty person who would happily take them off my hands.

I think that part of my weekend plans will be to try to weed out some of my possessions. I know I have a few things that are definitely eBay worthy, and other things that will do quite well as donations to Goodwill. While I don’t think I will ever be able to get my possessions down to what will fit in a 100 square foot home, a little bit of simplification never hurts.

Last, but not least, as you may have noticed, I’ve joined the BlogHer Ad network. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been pleased with the ads that have been presented, and I love the links to other blog entries that change every day. BlogHer is currently doing their annual survey, and if you have the time, please check it out and give your opinions!

Megan Smith

Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance.  It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information.  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck.  While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan.  I needed to budget.  I needed to know what I was spending my money on.  I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way.  I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.