My Journey to Minimalism. One Trick I Used to Get My Brain to Stop Thinking About Buying More Crap.
After bumping into “Minimalism" on Netflix not too long ago, my wife and I decided to become more minimal.
In fact, finding and watching that documentary at that exact right time saved us about $6/10,000 on tearing down our decent already existing pergola to replace it with a bigger, newer one. Instead we repaired what was needed, repainted and extended a small portion of it, spending just $2,000 instead of up to 10.
We saved up to $8,000 by just thinking differently.
Thankyou Minimalists.
Since then we’ve been looking at things we don’t need. Several wardrobe purges later, we’ve got less stuff but missing nothing.
But I’ve got an issue with cars.
I like change and I like cars.
That’s not a good mix.
I’ve changed my car every year for the past 3 years.
Absolutely nothing minimalist about that!
So this year I decided to sell my latest car, a more expensive BMW and to buy something cheaper because I wanted to redirect some of the extra money sitting on the driveway into paying our mortgage down faster instead.
I found a second hand, older but low mileage, well maintained Jeep 4WD for a great price.
At this point I’ve been thinking about a 4wd for a while at this point because I want to start taking my son out camping and on outdoor adventures.
I bought the Jeep and then I fell into my usual trap.
Modifying.
I was spending an hour or longer every day online looking for things to upgrade on it.
- Bigger all terrain tires
- A nudge bar
- Roof racks
- LED light replacements
- Maybe an LED light bar
- A roof tray or luggage pod to go on top of the roof racks
- An upgraded entertainment head unit
Now, I was being “smart” about it. Searching on local online classifieds app and Facebook Marketplace for a good deal. But it was sucking hours out of my day. And I didn’t mind because it’s like a hobby.
But this hobby was costing me time and it was about to start costing me a lot more money.
I was watching YouTube and bumped into more videos from the makers of Minimalism.
You could say I had a refresher course.
A reminder about our real goals.
A reminder about what my real priorities are/should be.
It made me think about all the time I was wasting thinking about pointless upgrades on my new Jeep.
And this is how I stopped myself from thinking about buying more crap:
I made a list of everything I do not need to buy and shouldn’t waste my time with.
It sounds stupidly simple.
But something about writing with pen on paper a bunch of things I don’t need under the title “Things not to buy” did something for me.
After that whenever I found myself online searching for something that was on my do not buy list, my logical brain kicked in and reminded me to stop wasting time because it wasn’t going to happen.
Because what I was looking at buying was on the list.
Technically I could’ve just had that those things in my mind. However…
Something about writing it down on paper cemented it into my brain. And locked it in there as a non negotiable.
So if you’re on a journey towards minimalism as well, and struggling with consumption, in a moment of strength sit down and using pen on maker make a list of things you need and things you don’t need. Call it that.
Title it “Things not to buy” and go hard.
