Voyagner

…you’re not how much money you’ve got in the bank.  You’re not your job.  You’re not your family, and you’re not who you tell yourself…. You’re not your name…. You’re not your problems…. You’re not your age…. You are not your hopes.

~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

I don’t need to live in a modern 2 bedroom unit at $250 a week. My second bedroom is full of things I don’t use and don’t need. Why did I buy a refrigerator that I can hardly ever fill and if I do most of the food in it will still go off before I get to use it?

I guess the explanation is that these things happened before I found the answer to how I want to live my life

Getting rid of “things”.

I emptied a box full of things and kitchen bits that are actually useful so long as they aren’t sitting in box in a spare room. I took that box into every room in the house and filled it with things that are essentially rubbish. Things that have just been kept for god knows what reason, things that have no or next to no value to sell and would be difficult even to give away. Into the rubbish with that and now I want to find some more stuff to clear out.

Reasons to Downshift

• It’s more sustainable.
• You’ll save money.
• Less stress.
• Less baggage.

It’s an essential part of lifestyle design that you control the amount of things you have so that when an opportunity comes along or if you create one for yourself you have the ability to take it without worrying too much about sorting out things like what to do with you car, furniture, white goods and other household items. You live with what you need and a small amount of luxuries that you frequently use, you find what “enough” is for you. For me this is an essential part of becoming financially ready to start the lifestyle of traveling and living abroad that I want.

Luckily I’ve managed to be pretty ruthless, there isn’t a lot of sentimental stuff I’ve held onto, many people struggle to get rid of this stuff but if you start out with just a few small things when you come back to what is left and recognize that you don’t miss the things you thought you might and the rest will more than likely be the same.

I’ve inventoried the things around my house that I will sell off before I leave but can’t offload until that time. I did this using Quicken and so it also helped my more accurately calculate my net worth. Selling off those larger items whenever you can feels good and helps with the bank balances too.

My lease ends in about two months so I’ll soon be looking for a smaller or shared apartment to move into which could save me $200 or more a month. A smaller place will force me to minimize the crap I leave lying around.