Minimalism and Simplifying Your Home

minimalism

Minimalism and Reasons to Simplify Your Home

What is minimalism? It is a new lifestyle that many in our country are starting to embrace….the simple life. The removal of excess for the purpose of greater freedom. Stuff, stuff and more stuff is the name of the game in many American households. There is something about living in the United States. Collecting stuff seems to occur effortlessly and many times you have no idea where it all came from.

Annual Routine

In our household, my wife has a focus on simplification. Mainly because of her own life experiences and mainly because all I deal with is people’s molded stuff! Every year before the holidays we walk through the house and get rid of everything that we are not using. We make donations to local non-profits for the end of the year tax deductions.  We also sell anything of value that we no longer want through platforms like Craigslist and eBay. We have not embraced the full “minimalism lifestyle” however we do see the wisdom in applying its principles to our lives in a more moderate approach.

This annual regime allows us to stay on top of the “stuff mountain” while at the same time helping our families financial well being. Do you have too much stuff? Take the simplification challenge and start purging this fall season! You may or may not embrace the “minimalism lifestyle”, but we do hope that you glean from its principles. You may even be surprised about how much Christmas money you might come up with!   


Video Transcript:

Good morning Kansas City! Ben Fetzer here with FreshStart Restoration! It’s a beautiful Saturday morning here. I just want to do a quick video about something that I’ve been thinking about. It’s not so much related to mold more related to. Organizing your life and organizing your basement space. I’ve done some videos about how to maintain your basement when you can’t really stop the water. How to get some shelving that’s conducive for a basement that gets wet periodically. Low maintenance type stuff.

Today I want to talk about more just very basic clutter and clutter reduction. The really, really common thing in the United States of America where we have so much stuff. We accumulate so much stuff. And if you’re not proactively trying to get rid of stuff the next thing you know you have nowhere to walk. And your basement is full of stuff and you’re maxed out on space. If you do have the event that water gets into the basement. Well, now you have a bunch of contaminated stuff. So my appeal. To everyone out there who’s got a basement with a few things that are stored in it. Is to consider the big picture as far as your stuff.

Minimalism

I watched the video a while back called “Minimalism”. A couple of guys that live on like basically nothing. Have four or five pairs of jeans, a couple of pairs of shoes, one computer. They live in like a 10 by 10 apartment. Kind of an interesting idea being a minimalist. But I think it’s intriguing. To at least consider having less stuff in your life. Because everything that you own becomes your responsibility. And you ultimately worry about it. All the stuff you have you got to do something with. Store it. Clean it, replace it, etc, etc. So it makes some sense to simply have less stuff. Especially in the areas where you’re just storing furniture or whatever you store.

Rolling Shelves and Moving Carts

So anyway you can always organize with good shelving systems. That is off the ground. I just came from a house that actually had steel shelving, with large casters, so they can move this whole heavy-duty shelf around. That’s a great idea. You could make those out of wood and just put some big casters on the bottom. And then you have a nice maneuverable shelf that you can put anywhere you want. And you can move it in a pinch if something’s going on like you’ve got to do some construction or renovation work. You need to be stored items somewhere quickly. So that’s a good idea to have some shelves of wheels that are heavy, heavy-duty.

Less Stuff is a Richer Life

But less stuff is a good idea. That’s my appeal today is consider starting to get rid of items that you have accumulated. Especially if you’re going to sell your house in the next 10 years. Don’t wait until nine and a half years. And you’re serious about selling your house and you’ve got the whole thing to do all at once. I would fight it off a bite at a time and spread it out over a few years. Or you begin to get rid of things, give things away, sell stuff that you might be wanting to sell. Donate things they want to sell dispose of stuff that just doesn’t have any value anymore. But beginning that process.

Planning for the Future

Thinking out 5, 10, 15 years maybe even further is a good idea. Its a super good idea. To be less painful then if you start to go through some stuff now. And minimize how many items there are in your basement. So that when you are getting close to being ready to move. It’s a lot easier process, so. That’s all I’m saying. I think it would be helpful to some people, probably almost all people. just having less stuff in your basement. And that’s it. Moldkansascity.com. I am Ben Fetzer with FreshStart Restoration and I hope you have a great weekend.