Freeing oneself of unnecessary possessions and financial commitments can eliminate stress and open up time and energy for the more important things in life- involvement with family and pursuing meaning in one’s career. Here are two people who have done it, and some advice for us all.
Fight Club’s Tyler Durden had it right (well, not the whole blowing up a city thing, but still): “The things you own wind up owning you”
The third rule of Fight Club: “The stuff you own winds up owning you” (official movie poster)
Hill sold his Internet company during the late 90’s boom and was an overnight twenty-something multi-millionaire. He bought lots of expensive stuff that didn’t bring him any satisfaction after the initial “wow” and soon had a mansion in Seattle and a huge loft in NYC. As he puts it (in his NYT oped piece):
My life was unnecessarily complicated. There were lawns to mow, gutters to clear, floors to vacuum, roommates to manage (it seemed nuts to have such a big, empty house), a car to insure, wash, refuel, repair and register and tech to set up and keep working. To top it all off, I had to keep Seven [Hill’s personal shopper] busy. And really, a personal shopper? Who had I become? My house and my things were my new employers for a job I had never applied for…. Somehow this stuff ended up running my life, or a lot of it; the things I consumed ended up consuming me
He met a woman and moved with her to Spain after her visa ran out. They lived in a tiny apartment in Barcelona, and Hill realized he didn’t need a fancy place or lots of stuff to be happy. He began to get rid of the inessential things he had collected, and sold off most of his stuff as well as his two homes.
Hill now lives in a 420-square-foot studio apartment. He owns 6 dress shirts, no CDs or DVDs, and 10% of the books he used to have. Hill says that he now “lives a bigger, better, richer life with less.”
As he sums up: “Intuitively, we know that the best stuff in life isn’t stuff at all, and that relationships, experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life.” Hill feels that, by clearing the clutter of possessions, he’s better able to be happy.
Now, you may be saying that it’s easier for a rich single guy to live that kind of life. That may be true, but now consider the Jordans- a family of three living in a 320 square foot house (that’s 16’x20′- the room you are in may be bigger than that).
Interior view of the Jordan’s 320 square foot house. Photo from their website www.320squarefoothome.com
The Jordans have taken simplification to an extreme. Debra and Gary had been self-sustaining missionaries in Ecuador for 9 years, so simplification probably came easier to them than to most.
But they went from a regular sized house with a mortgage to their tiny fully-paid-for one. If you look at the pictures of their house, it is really quite charming. They also home-school their high-school-age son and run a business (making baby blankets and gifts) out of a second 320 foot cottage on their fully-paid-for property. Everyday living expenses are minimal. The little cottage is easy to heat (one small wood stove), clean, and stock. Imagine how freeing it would be to have no mortgage or heating bill, and minimal household expenses.
As Debra puts it, after making the transition from a 2000+ square foot house, with all of the stuff that came with it, to a simplified life, “the reading on the Happiness Scale is so much higher now. It is like being overweight and losing pounds and inches (which we are also doing). The physical feeling of relief is tangible in every way.”
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I admit that I am not brave enough to take such a leap. Plus, I like a lot of my stuff just fine. But most of us reading this blog have more stuff/money than time at our disposal. Freeing oneself of financial commitments can eliminate stress and open up time and energy for the more important things in life- involvement with family and pursuing meaning in one’s career.
Further, the pressure to provide, buy nice big things, and then keep up with those payments can keep us away from the lives we’d like to live and the paths we’d rather pursue. (This has been a consistent theme on this blog, see On Prioritizing Time and Money, Are Your Finances Foiling Your Job Flexibility?, How to Buy More Time With Your Family and the Sharing Experiences series for examples)
I doubt many of us could, or would even want to, go as far as Graham Hill and Debra Jordan in terms of extreme simplification (who wants to live with just 6 shirts anyway!). But maybe their examples can help us think of a few things, large or small, we can do to simplify. We’d all be better off for doing so.
Off the top of my head (and from a quick google search), here are a few things we could consider:
Go through your books, DVDs, kitchen stuff, clothes, and your kids’ toys, and gather up at least 1/4 of the stuff to donate. You won’t miss a thing, and you’d be helping out others
Rethink and downscale gift-giving. For example, a few years ago, my sister and I agreed that we’d only give Christmas presents to each other’s kids, and no longer to one another and our spouses
If you are looking to buy a house, don’t max out what you can afford. Make sure your future mortgage payments aren’t a big source of stress
Drive that car another year or two before considering a new one
Think about buying fewer, better things instead of lots of cheap disposable things
Finally, before any purchase, ask if it is a need or a want. Treat yourself sometimes, but at least consider your purchase. For example, if your iPhone4 is working fine, do you need the iPhone5?
Have you tried simplifying? How could your life be different (career, use of time, more fully living your priorites, etc.) if you could eliminate a large chunk of your financial commitments? Let’s discuss in the comments section.
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