 |
If you’re determined to save money but can’t ever seem to no matter how much you budget or try to save, then there’s another option you should consider: minimalism. If you’re not familiar with it, minimalism is just a philosophy that advocates trying to live with as few material possessions in your life as possible. Not only can living a minimalist lifestyle have spiritual and quality of life advantages, it can have considerable financial ones, too.
How can you clear out your life of possessions you don’t need? What aspect of minimalism is the best way of saving money? That’s what we’re here to answer today.
Step #1 to living a more minimalist lifestyle is taking stock of what is truly important to you. Comb through your house and think about what of what you own you actually enjoy. That old clock in the dining room? The electric guitar you’ve never played? The surfboard in the garage? Humans are hoarders at heart, and we tend to collect possessions without really thinking about their long-term value or utility. And while that made sense when we still lived in caves, nowadays it tends to mean our houses become filled with things we don’t truly value.
If you want to live a minimalist lifestyle, start by doing a thorough cleaning and inventory of everything in your house. Go room by room and evaluate your possessions one by one: ask yourself if it’s something that you’ve used in the past two years. If it isn’t, then toss it unless it holds sentimental value (specific sentimental value, that is, not just a general sense of fondness or nostalgia). You won’t get it all done in a day, but if you use this method you’ll eventually separate the wheat from the chaff.
Instead of just throwing away all the possessions you just got rid of, one way to recoup a little of their cost is by throwing a garage sale. While a garage sale won’t make thousands of dollars or as much as title loans, it can make a decent sized dent in whatever financial issue you’re currently facing.
If you don’t feel like having a bunch of strangers traipsing across your front yard, in today’s digital age there are a plethora of places that you can sell your stuff online, often at a better price than you would get from a simple garage sale. The most common venue is Amazon, but others include eBay, Bonanza, Etsy, and even Craigslist.
This is the key way minimalism can save you money: preventing you from spending where you don’t need to in the future. Next time you're looking for holiday decorations? Really weigh each potential decoration and whether it’ll actively give you joy when you see it each time you pass it. Looking to buy a new laptop? Think about what features you actually need before buying the latest and greatest by default.
