Moving and Minimalism

Recently, my apartment gave me a call and told me that they are raising my rental rate 20%. I live in one of the most affluent parts of the city (I’m not affluent, I just found a hell of a deal three years ago) and so it’s no surprise that my rental rates are increasing. I figured that if I’m going to pay more for my rent, maybe I could get a small house for my nine year old son and me. I’m engaged, and will be married on June 24th, so we my fiance and I won’t live together until then - she has a nice house a few blocks away from my apartment. So, I’ll be living in this house for about 7.5 months.

I found a nice little house about a mile or so from my apartment. It costs a bit more, I’ll have to do yard work, I have to pay for every utility. So why move? Well, my son doesn’t like the apartment life and I want to move. What excites me about moving? Forced minimalism. No one likes to move. Moving a lot of boxes sucks. I had a lot of boxes filled with sentimental items such as my childhood favorite basketball player jerseys, scouting badges, trophies, old letters, old photos, baby blankets, stuffed animals, college notes, and a bunch of computer junk.

I either threw most of it away, packed it up for charity, took some digital photos of some stuff and scanned some old photos. I reduced about six big boxes of stuff down to about one. I love it. I’ve been on this path for about 9 months now. In fact, If I felt that it wouldn’t impact my relationships with my son or my fiance I would get rid of my TV and my bed. But if I got rid of my bed my fiance wouldn’t stay at my house and I enjoy watching some football with my son.

I hate clutter. I’m a messy person. I feel that by getting rid of stuff and material possessions will serve multiple benefits. I’ll be cleaner, I’ll be less focused on stuff. The stuff that you own, ends up owning you. You have to worry about cleaning your stuff, you have fix your stuff if it breaks, if you lose it, you’ll have to deal with the emotional loss of your stuff.

I’m not where I want to be, but I’m much closer.

What do you think of minimalism?