Minimalism—Minimizing: Personal Case Study and 45 Resources

Part 5 in the “Move Abroad” series.

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

I posted two previous articles about minimizing in this series. Part 1—minimizing mistakes can be found here. And the Podcast episode is here.

In today’s article I talk about my personal challenges with minimizing in order to help you not feel alone and offer you the solutions and resources that worked for me.

I mentioned a few things that I did wrong, in my article minimizing part 1; especially my issues around gathering (and purging) massive amounts of paper and a sentimental item solution so check out this article and also part 2 for more.

If you want to know my reasons for first moving into a van and then, leaving the US and moving abroad, you can find that article here.

After the Decision

After I decided to move into the van, I gave myself one year to get rid of everything. While it’s true that I had an advantage over a family of four, or even a family of two who live in a house when it comes to the amount of accumulated “stuff”— being alone through the process presented its own challenges.

I had a lot of stuff. The first thing I did was disallow myself from buying more things. If it was needed for the van, I could get it, but I limited that too. And in the end, I really should have limited it even more because I definitely ended up with items I didn’t need. 

Lesson #1: wait until you’re in vanlife, traveling or living abroad before buying non-essential items.

The Costly Toilet Mistake

Even the toilet. I researched and researched and ended up with cartridge toilet that needed to be physically emptied. It wasn’t cheap, around $300, and I had my van builders create a specific space for it to nest. But then I realized I did not want to be carrying a container full of crap all the time to a dump area. I wanted to streamline my life and in the end I found a less expensive toilet ($100) that uses bags and fit perfectly inside an ottoman and could double as a seat/chair. It was one of the best purchases I made! But I couldn’t return the first toilet because I bought it almost a year prior and didn’t realize I didn’t need or want it until nine months later. 

Lesson #1 reiterated: wait! 

Clothing and Organized Hoarding

I had at least twenty large plastic bins at the top of my huge walk-in closet which was the size of a small bedroom. My coat closet, which was separate, was stuffed full of coats and shoes. The amount of clothing I owned was out of control. I had two enormous dressers full of clothes, all folded and itemized, but so what! Both sides of my closet was packed with hanging clothes.

Solution:

I used several solutions to get rid of my clothes. The first solution was to re-organize my closet. I put all my favorite items and the things I wore most frequently in the front. Prior to this, and the way my current armoire is now (most bedrooms don’t include closets in Europe) is that I hang my clothes according to type. All skirts are in one area, pants in another, shirts in a third and dresses in a fourth.

Because I had a year, I broke the minimizing down systematically, or as much as I could until the final months when all bets were off.

For the first few months, I kept the clothes I rarely wore toward the back and then started getting rid of them. I frequented two consignment stores and took some clothing to them once a week. 

The second solution was to create a capsule wardrobe and only wear those items for a month. Having a capsule wardrobe while traveling is easy for me, even for long-term travel. But having a capsule wardrobe at my home-base is challenging. I love clothes. They’re my key to self-expression. I found the capsule wardrobe far too limiting for daily, long-term use but I knew I’d have to figure out a way to make peace with it because—vanlife.

In the end I changed the way I dressed completely for the year I lived in the van. I no longer wore “cute clothes” and had to limit myself to practical clothing instead. I was able to follow through on this because I knew it wasn’t forever.

Kitchen Items

I got rid of almost everything. At first I separated two plates, two cups, two bowls and kept those out while putting the rest in a box and labeling it. I had acquired far too much over the years and I knew I wouldn’t be bringing most of it with me. For vanlife I used only two non-breakable metal plates, bowls and cups. 

I was, and still am, a little too-much in love with three specific pieces of ovenware. So I got rid of the rest and only kept those. They’re versatile and over-priced but they’re also amazing. I have them here in Portugal now, carried over in my luggage after my last trip to the US. I brought the two smaller ones with me into the van. I sold or gave away the rest of the set and donated or gave away all my corningware. I sold my juicer and all the other big ticket items I wasn’t using on a regular basis like my dehydrators. Yes, I had two.

Solution:

As mentioned in my two previous articles on “Minimizing Mistakes” I tackled one drawer at a time or one shelf at a time. If I had a few hours and was feeling really motivated, I tackled one cabinet at at time.

Paper Items

I’m not going to rehash my out-of-control paper situation here but you can find the story in this article.

Bathroom

Let me first set the stage so you don’t: 1. Feel overwhelmed. 2. Judge yourself too harshly.

I lived alone so all the crap in the bathroom belonged to me. It wasn’t an enormous bathroom but it was big enough. There were cabinets under the sink and at least four, maybe even five large drawers above. In addition there was another floor to ceiling cabinet next to the bath with at least six deep shelves.

Every single centimeter was full in all of these areas. In the floor to ceiling cabinet I had… you guessed it, labeled plastic bins piled on the top three shelves. Each shelf fit four bins. Each bin was full of… I don’t even know what. One was labeled hair and contained a myriad of hair products I rarely used. Brushes, clips, samples of shampoo and conditioners, fancy combs, etc. Another container was full of cotton balls and q-tips, in their packages, just in case. The problem with this was that when I ran out of either, I couldn’t even see this bin and didn’t know where it was among the twelve or more bins stacked in this cabinet and so, I always ended up buying more. 

I had one container full of halloween make-up and another full of “just in case” eyeshadow pallets. I had one full of samples I never used and another full of empty travel containers and well… you get the picture.

Solution:

I had to tackle one shelf at a time and one drawer at a time though, I will admit, I got into a zone while first decluttering and minimizing my bathroom. I had to be brutal. I used paper bags propped on the bathroom sink and in the bathtub for sorting, as my bathroom wasn’t big enough for boxes.

I filled several bags with give-away items: I knew who I’d be giving certain items to so, for example I filled one bag with the packaged and unused cotton balls and q-tips for my male bestie. We had ongoing plans every other week so I regularly brought him things or gave him bags when he came to visit. I filled another bag with the eyeshadow pallets for another friend and put my hair dryer, diffuser and curling irons (yes I had three) in another bag for someone else. I gave away almost all my towels, keeping my quick-dry camping towel and just two others. I donated items and threw away the rest. Each day I worked on the bathroom, I would fill a trash bag and immediately throw it away.

For each item I was unsure about, like my beloved travel toiletry bag, I would ask myself: “are you going to use this in the van?” “are you going to use this when you move abroad?” The answer was almost always no, so I let those items go. 

Even now, I don’t own a toiletry bag. When I travel, I pack each toiletry item in a separate labeled ziplock. If you want to know more about that, I wrote about this crazy method that I developed in this article.

Furniture

I did let go of the furniture I wasn’t using as quickly as possible. Anything too heavy was listed on craigslist and nextdoor. If I was giving the item away for free, I had a friend help me carry it outside and placed it next to my apartment but not directly in front of it for pick up. I saved the biggest items I was using for last like my couch, bed and TV. 

I’m not saying you have to do what I do or what I did, but I do hope I’m giving you a few ideas. For a deeper dive, hand-holding and cheerleading, please subscribe to this newsletter so you’ll be told when my upcoming class releases at the end of October. I have two full modules, with multiple lessons dedicated to minimizing. 

I also encourage you to start immersing yourself in youtube videos, podcasts and to read or listen to books. This really helped me get into the mindset of letting it all go. If you go for books, I recommend only getting them on kindle or audible so you don’t amass more “stuff”.

Personal suggestion: I found that reading about and watching videos about “extreme minimalism” helped the most because I was (and you may be) getting rid of almost everything in order to move on to a new adventure.

Resources:

I made a handy google spreadsheet with all the resources listed below here.

Books:

• My Favorite Book: Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki—I got it on kindle and audible and devoured it during my bathroom purge.

• The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life by Joshua Becker

• The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify by Francine Jay

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport

• Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver

• Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus

• Minimalism for Families: Practical Minimalist Living Strategies to Simplify Your Home and Life by Zoë Kim

• The Art of Simple Living: 100 Daily Practices from a Japanese Zen Monk for a Lifetime of Calm and Joy by Shunmyo Masuno

• L'art de la Simplicité: How to Live More with Less by Dominique Loreau (in English)

• Hello Habits: A Minimalist’s Guide to a Better Life by Fumio Sasaki

*The books contain affiliate links. Using them is not required and does not cost you anything extra but I greatly appreciate it, if you do. It’s a (free to you) way to help support my writing.

YouTubers and Videos:

• Before Extreme Minimalism Tour (apartment before and after)

• Minimalist Apartment: Nate O’Brien

• Getting rid of Paper Clutter

• Anja—Extreme Minimalism : This is my favorite minimalist person on YT

• A Day in the Life of a Minimalist—Matt D’Avella

• Ashlynne Eaten—Minimalist Morning Routine

• Break the Twitch—Anthony Ongaro

• A Small Wardrobe—Patricia Mycyk

• The Minimal Mom

• Zero Waste Home—Bea Johnson (one of my favorite’s)

Websites:

• The Minimalists: I really like Josh and Ryan. Reading their website, adopting their minimalist games and challenges and listening to their podcast really helped me on my journey. 

Here are my favorite links from the Minimalists:

• Our 21 day Journey into Minimalism

• Start with the Easy Sh$t

• The 30 Day Minimalist Game

• Need, Want, Like

• What is my Outcome?

• Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying’

Other Websites:

• Be More with Less

• Exile Lifestyle

• Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

• RV Chickadee

• MnmList

• Goodbye Things: Fumio Sasaki’s Blog

• Becoming Minimalist

• No Sidebar

• Miss Minimalist

Podcasts:

• The Declutter Hub

• The Tortoise Podcast 

• The Minimalist Vegan Podcast

• The Minimalists

• The Art of Decluttering

Google Sheet with all the links above in one place!

LINKS FOR THE ENTIRE MOVE ABROAD SERIES (so far):

• Part 1—Want to move abroad? Start here!

• Part 2—Conquer your fears about moving abroad!

• Part 3—12 Minimizing Mistakes Part 1

• Part 4—12 Minimizing Mistakes Part 2

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