| By Dawn Starks |
It seems that for the majority of my adult life, I have been interested in simple living. It appeals to me in so many ways. Given my career, it might seem obvious that being careful with spending is something I can endorse. I have always been anti-consumerism, which is probably counter-intuitive in the financial services industry.
Living a simple life is very attractive to me – walks in the woods, reading, spending time with family – these are the things I love. Watching TV, modern technology, shopping at the mall – these are examples of things I do not like.Minimalism is also appealing to me. Clean lines, a lack of knick-knacks, no clutter, minimal belongings – ahh, that is what I want! Clutter drives me crazy. I read books pretty regularly about how to de-clutter your stuff and your life. What I have discovered about myself, however, is that all of this is not easy to accomplish. Well, it can be easy to make changes, but those changes are difficult to maintain. I have found that to be true about many things!
Here is a story about one simple living lesson I learned… the hard way.
When my husband and I were first married, we lived in a 900 square foot house that featured three bedrooms and one and a half baths. It had a tiny yard, but was totally adequate for our needs. At that point, we had four dogs. We planned to stay in it (affectionately referred to as our “starter house”) for a year, then move into a larger home and keep it as a rental. Well, as fate would have it, we ended up living in that home for four years. During that time, our dog population grew to six.
We were bursting at the seams. Six dogs require some space, and of course we had stuff. Even then, I was interested in simple living, and I really did strive to keep things minimalistic. We were never big on décor, favoring simple, muted shades of paint and plain furniture. Our furnishings were largely a combination of hand-me-downs and thrift store finds.
In 2001, we moved to a bigger house, about 1400 square feet, on a few acres and we were in heaven. Our crappy old furniture made the move, and we added a few things here and there. In making that move, we adopted two dogs (a long and wonderful story, but one for another day), bringing our four-legged family count to eight. We spent 13 years there, during which time we peaked at nine dogs and two ferrets. The pet population had declined somewhat (natural attrition) when our daughter arrived in 2008.
We rearranged our house to accommodate this new human, and as always, I worked hard to manage our stuff. But we were crowded! Books were everywhere, and the fact that we started homeschooling only made the book population grow. While at that home we added a few new furniture items, and still had a hodge-podge of furniture, and way too much stuff.
It took quite a long time for my business to become successful enough to think about a larger space, but finally we began the process of working with an architect to design our dream home. My husband and I disagreed on the size it should be. Since we were building it on a substantial piece of land, he thought the house should be at least 3000 square feet. I balked – “Who is going to CLEAN that huge home?” I really wanted 2000 square feet, just a bit more than we had and a better layout. We compromised with a design that gave us about 2400 square feet.
Why am I telling you all this, dear reader? It is certainly not meant to brag. This is a life lesson, and one that was incredibly costly for us. So please bear with me. Building this new house was a long, expensive ordeal, as home building so often is. During the process, however, we embarked on a de-cluttering project that lasted 2 years and, really, is still in process. I didn’t want all the old, worn out furniture to move. I didn’t want all the STUFF to move with us. So in several sessions, we eliminated a bunch of stuff. I reduced my books, for example by about 60-70%. Let’s just say I have enough credit at Mr. K’s to never shell out cash again for a book… ever.
Okay, so we moved to bigger, nicer digs and got rid of stuff – lovely. But here is the rub. Now we have more space than ever, and less stuff than ever before. Our rooms are relatively bare, in part because I can’t make up my mind of what furniture we should have in certain parts, and partly it has been on purpose. I love the openness, the sparseness. We have exactly one wall hanging, and it is a clock in the kitchen. Otherwise, the views out our windows are all the décor we need. But now I am firmly of the opinion that we have entirely too much space. We could EASILY be living in 1500 square feet and still not feel like we were sacrificing.
And it gets better. As a family, we love to travel. We homeschool our daughter, and traveling is part of the education we provide. Last summer we bought a new-to-us RV, and we’ve made several trips. As you might imagine, you must take a vastly reduced pile of stuff on a trip where three people (and sometimes the last remaining dog in our family) are closed in a small space. This has been great fun, but also enormously telling. It has been a very big ‘brick to the head’ sort of experience for us.
It all boils down to stuff. Changing our relationship with stuff has changed a lot about the way we see ourselves and the way we live our lives. Will we move to a smaller home? Who knows – perhaps someday we will. We love our house and enjoy the serenity it provides, even if to some folks it would look, well, somewhat empty. Will we do more RV traveling? Without a doubt, we will.
The moral of this story, if there even needs to be one, is that even someone who is very attuned to simple living and streamlining possessions can screw it up. I think we got caught up in the dream of having a nicer home, when we could have saved ourselves loads of money and hassles if we had just TRULY de-cluttered the space we already had.
Dawn Starks is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner and financial advisor at Starks Financial Group, an independent firm. Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. This article expresses the opinions of Dawn Starks and not necessarily those of Raymond James. You should discuss any tax or legal matters with the appropriate professional.
Starks Financial Group
440 Montford Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
828-285-8777
Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC.
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