Right, over the last year or so i've got into downsizing in a big way.
Everything from the house to the cars have all been downsized and probably not for the reasons your thinking.
I read an article last year about a guy who was trying to get out of the "things own you, not the other way around" race to own all the shit in the world that has the cheek to have a barcode on it.
This was a fabulous idea, time to get rid of the shit in my life that I had stored up over the last few years, never used or hid in the loft.
Being a big car nut, first thing to do was get down to one car. That was hard in itself but finally bit the bullet and gave up my prize Landrover Defender, keeping my mk2 Audi TT Roadster.
But this threw up another problem, I have a dog, how do I shuttle him about?
So, the TT went and I bought another 4x4.
Then I missed having a car so the 4x4 went and I bought a Porsche. Damn, this was getting to be a nightmare. Then I ended up back to square one and got rid of the Porsche, buying another 4x4 so I could move the dog around.
Then I missed having a car so bought a Golf Gti hoping that would do it, and for a while it has.
To date i've also got rid of a load of stuff on Ebay netting myself about £15,000 which has been banked. (Probably for the next time I change my car.)
So, my 100 item dream is at about the 280 item point now. This doesn't include clothing to a certain degree or white goods items like fridges or washing machines.
But I do have 3 x 50inch plus HI Def plasmas/LCD's, Xbox360/PS3 etc and now its getting to the point where if i'm going to follow this through I have to cut out some other luxuries.
My main issue at the moment is to go Mac or stick P.C.
Its a big deal. I write my Blog on my laptop, I keep my music and photo's on iLife on my Mac in my office.
All is not well.
As a lifestyle this forces you to make some serious decisions. Recently i've toyed with giving up my car and taking on biking everywhere and hiring a car when i need one. This negates issues like people damaging my car, parking fees, fuel, car tax and about 10 things you can't think of but I can.
Heres the thing though. Since I began this quest in the Summer, i've found myself getting frustrated by having to make these decisions, but once they were made it's such a load off, and more freeing than you can possibly imagine.
I can't tell you how much happier i've been since I made the decision to do this.
It's freed me up to think about so many other things, choose what's really important in my life and untie my mind from silly things like thinking about what to buy next. If I dont need it, I rarely browse for shit I dont need, and therefore do something far more interesting instead.
So, all I can say is take the first step of jumping out of the ratrace, sell the shit you dont need or dont use then take another look at your life.
You'll be happy you did.
