A Minimalism Plan

One of my goals for the year was to reduce my possessions. It was a vague goal and remains so. That's bothered me all year. More over, I've actually increased how much stuff is in the apartment due to Jojo's ever-changing needs.

I have a box of "stuff" I meant to get rid of, but have yet to do so for a few reasons. I put stuff I did not think I needed and then left it there. If I took it out of the box, then I'd keep it. If not, I'd get rid of it. At the moment, some of that stuff I had scanned into a computer I failed to back up so I am holding off to see if I can recover the data before getting rid of the original (and then backing up the data). When I know what I can recover from the old hard drive, grand. I'll do what I need to do with the box of stuff. 

The question is why I keep it. 

One thing I've learned about reducing possessions is that it will not happen without a plan. When Mo and I got married, our finances were horrid. We never had a budget, we barely knew when our bills were due or how we would pay them. We spent money when we had money, we both had credit cards, we both had huge debts, and we hadn't a clue how we were going to deal with any of it. Debt collectors called me every day. I was late on everything, when we could pay at all. We basically lived in financial stress. Eventually, we realized we didn't know what we were doing and blaming our lack of knowledge or our upbringing was pointless. We needed a plan. 

pictured: not the plan. 

So we made one. Now we have money, we have a budget, we have a plan. We actually have several, just in case. I don't remember what debt collection calls are like. I never lose sleep over our finances. If I am worried, I load up the budget, find out how we are doing and what the immediate plans are, then go back to bed. We are maintaining 4 different emergency funds (to cover our families) plus saving for a house and paying off the remainder of our debt - at the same time. Was it because it was such a good plan? Nope. Wasn't even a very good one. I'll happily tell you all about the various ways it wasn't as good as it should have been and how we had to change it over and over again. It was A plan, and that's all we needed.

Same thing with possessions. I own too much stuff and I want to get rid of it. I haven't made a plan and, oh look, I have even more stuff than when I started this year. Awesome. But how to make a plan to reduce things? My first instinct it to make a list or database of my possessions and then decide what needs to go. I tried that initially, didn't work. Cataloging everything I own is more of an undertaking than I think is reasonable or even productive. I'll spend more time cataloging than I will getting rid of stuff.

Being less specific is...kinda against my nature. But, in this case I think it is likely a better plan. One issue is I really haven't worked with Mo to discuss this reduction in possessions. I really have no idea why not, but I do know it's not going to happen without her support. In a marriage, getting anything done usually means working together.

"Okay, this time I will tank the boss and you spam heal."*

Once I know if, and how much, Mo is interested in reducing possessions, as well as getting a much clearer idea of what our end-goal will look like, making a real plan is likely to be easier.

*for those of you who get it, you're welcome. Those who don't...World of Warcraft is fun, you should try it some time.

it's like cocaine.