Ease Your Financial Payne

Grief, Ego, and Principles

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” -Arthur Schopenhauer.

I cannot express this sentiment in better words. When you lose something, or particularly, someone, that is exceedingly important, an extreme paradigm shift occurs, rather rapidly. Which can be excruciating, but as Carl Jung said, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

Your whole view of the world can transform in an instant, thus influencing your priorities in life. This is why I believe many people, not all, go through mid-life crises. Around this time in most people’s lives, is when they start to “lose” loved ones, typically parents or other important figures in their life so far. When this occurs, as it will to all of us in due time, the aforementioned paradigm shift happens. Most people then realize they’ve been guiding their life by less valuable principles, such as: popularity, pleasure, money, etc. causing them to break down. Not only are they grieving the loss of the loved one, but the loss of who they once thought they were.

Those who struggle with midlife crises, rather than learning from this, dig their heels in deeper into their former way of life out of fear of facing the falsehoods they’ve based their whole world around. The ego dominates. This phenomenon happens in other ways as well, such as someone staying with a partner that adds negativity to their life. The fear of admitting they “wasted” 10, 20, 30 years with the wrong person is too much for the fragile ego to handle. So they stay.

In a way, this makes loss at a much younger age a blessing in disguise. You’ve already learned the hard way what is and is not important before you’ve had the time to base your whole entire life around poor principles for decades. Resulting in others saying, “You’re so mature for your age.” or “You’re wise beyond your years.” … Well, yes. I received a painful and extreme paradigm shift at a young age. What a waste that would be if I hadn’t adjusted my actions accordingly or at least learned lessons from it. Which unfortunately is the case for some people, even if they experience loss at a young age.

You have to face the unsightly grief. Delve into all of the horrendous thoughts and feelings you are experiencing to figure out why you are thinking/feeling this way. Once you know why, you can start to work through it. Remember: The problem is never the problem, dig deeper until you strike diamonds (the true why). –Therapy is marvelous for this.

Only then can you truly start to heal, it may take years; It took me over 7. Re-evaluating and adjusting the principles you base your life off of are a part of the healing process. Along with deciding where you are going to spend your very limited time and energy.

With that being said, where do your priorities truly lie? Are you truly satisfied with your life now? If you aren’t satisfied with your life today, chances are you won’t be satisfied with it tomorrow either. It will take time and personal development to change this. No quick fixes exist in life, no matter how much you want them to.

If after reading this you realize you have based your life off of trivial principles, I suggest facing your frightening thoughts and feelings, preferably through therapy, and recognize that it is okay, normal and healthy in fact, to make mistakes. As you work through these thoughts and feelings, you can start to decide where you want to reallocate your remaining time and energy. Life is a journey that is not linear, nor is anything in life permanent. You don’t need to lose someone either to experience this paradigm shift. You can always choose to change course.

Here is a link to BetterHelp for online therapy. This link gives you and I both a FREE week. Let’s help each other.

I have another post coming soon on what principles I now base all of my life choices on.

As always, thank you so much for reading. I hope you find healing and your purpose.

Feel free to share this with whomever you think may need it.

-Meghan

My Links:

ThriftBooks -I LOVE them as a company & order all of my books from them now! They ship super fast, great service, books always show up as described, super cheap, & good for the planet because they’re second-hand, but you get to choose the quality!
BetterHelp -A week of Therapy for FREE!
Betterment -Invest your first $5,000 for FREE!
Back Market -My referral code: 6888f588d6f85083 -$10 off your order! Refurbished Tech! My sister & I both got “new” phones from there. They’re awesome, great quality, so much cheaper than buying new (by up to 70%), came super fast, was super easy to buy, AND we saved 123 pounds of carbon emissions, each!

Reaching Partial Financial Independence:

I made a post on July 7th, 2021 called: You Are a Lot Closer to Your Ideal Lifestyle Than You Think.. and it turned out to be very true. Now that we sold my husband’s vehicle, we have accomplished everything on my “dream life/ideal lifestyle” list that is near the bottom of the aforementioned blog post. Everything except, have a child & go down to part time work.

Here is the list:

I’m healthy in every way, including spiritually.
Prioritize my relationships; non-toxic folks only.
Debt free, except for mortgage.
We are working part time, or only as much as we want/need to.
Have a child.
Do what we can to support a more sustainable environment.
No more social media, except Pinterest & Instagram.
Help others financially through the Money For Everyone podcast, this blog, & my time.
We have one car & 2 bikes.

As for the items on this list we have not yet accomplished:

We now have enough money saved, decreased our expenses enough, & have gotten raises to the point where we could both easily go down to part time work & maintain our current lifestyle. Or we can survive on just one of our incomes. So, we are partially financially independent now. (My husband and I are only 23 & 24 right now.)

To see how we got to this point, you can go to my Monthly Financial Updates page where I have tracked our financial journey since May 2020; or you can check out my Financial Advice tab too.

As for having a child, we are planning on working full time until we have a baby, which we have no idea when that will be since a lot of that is out of our control. I also wouldn’t tell people (except a few close friends & family members) until I was successfully out of the first trimester, since 20%+ of pregnancies end in miscarriage. This does not count still births or numerous other things that can go wrong during pregnancy & birth. You never know, so I am not putting any pressure or expectation on our “have a child” goal.

Even if we successfully have a baby, we are not sure who would go down to part time or stop working. There are so many unknowns & variables. Such as, what if we have twins? What if the baby is alive but has health issues? What if I have postpartum depression and/or anxiety? What if our baby is easy & chill? What if I feel fine after a couple weeks & want to return to work? What if we have fertility issues & can’t conceive so all of this wondering, worrying, & planning is pointless? Who knows! We won’t know the best choice for us as a couple until after the baby is here.

It should feel like a relief now knowing one of us could lose our job (or quit) or choose to work less hours, and everything would be fine, but I, for some reason still feel just as worried about our finances. It doesn’t make sense, we’re more secure than we’ve ever been, but I feel even more anxious recently.

My hypothesis on why I think I’m feeling this way: When you have more, you have more to lose, which is scary. We have not inflated our lifestyle, in fact, we’ve deflated it, so I’m not talking about losing material possessions. I don’t care about that as long as we can keep our very modest house. I also think I don’t want to miss out on money I could’ve had & I’m worried about not taking advantage of every opportunity to get as far ahead as I can. Of course I want to work less if I have worked hard to get to that point financially, but there is still that fear of not achieving enough, for me at least. Millennial Revolution made a post about this recently, called Why Freedom Can be Scary, that explains this further. Another reason may be, with more freedom & control, there comes more decision making & responsibility. I’m not as worried about this since I am a decisive & responsible person, but I think my husband greatly struggles with this (or will once we are fully financially independent), he is insanely indecisive.

I think I’m just stressed out from work too. It’s not stress that is screaming in your face, but more mild & constantly buzzing in the background reminding you of the 50 things you have to get done, but the buzzing is growing louder. My job has gotten far more complicated now with my new work role, so I decided to go back to my Office Administrator role. It just wasn’t worth it.

Even so, I feel more calm & confident about leaving work than my husband does. This is because I’m the one who does all of the financial planning, money management, & calculations, so I know for a fact we would be okay. I think he also likes his job more than I like mine, but I’m not certain.

It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that we’re already partially financially independent, when we were at 0 net worth & just starting this journey exactly 3 years ago. I’m thinking that around 3 years from now we will have our mortgage totally paid off, with our monthly expenses somewhere around $1200-$2000/month. At this point, we will both absolutely go down to part time work, & maybe have one of us not be employed at all. The main goal is for me to be self employed through this blog & EYFP Instagram, & have Brandon work part time at his job, that’s it.

As always, thanks for reading! Our September Financial Update will be out Monday, October 4th, 2021.

-Meghan

My Links:

ThriftBooks -I LOVE them as a company & order all of my books from them now! They ship super fast, great service, books always show up as described, super cheap, & good for the planet because they’re second-hand, but you get to choose the quality!
BetterHelp -A week of Therapy for FREE!
Betterment -Invest your first $5,000 for FREE!
Back Market -My referral code: 6888f588d6f85083 -$10 off your order! Refurbished Tech! My sister & I both got “new” phones from there. They’re awesome, great quality, so much cheaper than buying new (by up to 70%), came super fast, was super easy to buy, AND we saved 123 pounds of carbon emissions, each!

Quick & Important Ease Your Financial Payne Instagram, Blog & Podcast Updates:

Hello & Welcome back to Ease Your Financial Payne! I just wanted to make this quick post to let my followers/readers on here know some important updates regarding Ease Your Financial Payne.

I created an Instagram account for this blog (@easeyourfinancialpayne). I personally don’t like a lot about social media, but I see it as a “necessary evil” to help promote this blog & connect with more people. I am still personally staying away from all socials except Instagram & Pinterest.

The Instagram feed:

Feel free to follow me on Instagram to know when posts are released, see more content, and/or reach out to me.

As for the blog, I am planning on continuing to post weekly. I have realized though, that I have been posting on the worst days & times for engagement on my blog. I analyzed what dates & times my posts did best. So, from now on, I will have a new post out every Monday morning at 9am. If I want to post more than once in any particular week, because I have bonus content, I will most likely post it on Wednesday at 9am.

Eric and I originally thought we would be returning with season 2 of our podcast at the end of August/early September 2021. Since it is already September 12th when I am writing this, that is clearly not going to happen. August & September have been very eventful for us and we are heading into our busy season for our jobs. October is Medicare season for me, which will be crazy because I’ve never sold or done work with Medicare before at all. Also, Eric is in the process of moving across the country as I’m writing this, so there’s no way we’ll be able to record anytime soon. Now is not the right time for us to start season 2, at all. I’m not saying we never will, but for sure not anytime over the next couple months. For now, I want to use the free time I do have to focus just on Ease Your Financial Payne.

Other than my personal life, things like my health & relationships, I’m going to be focusing only on keeping my job & growing Ease Your Financial Payne as much as I can, that’s all.

As always, thanks for reading!

-Meghan

The Best Sustainable Cleaning Products! (No DIYs!)

Want to clean your home without dirtying our planet? In a way that’s easy AND saves you money? I feel you & that’s why I’m writing this post! I suggest saving it or liking it so you can come back & reference it when it’s time to buy new cleaning products! Your own sustainable cleaning cheat sheet.

I’ve tried quite a few sustainable cleaning products now & I finally have a sustainable cleaning routine for my whole house that I love! (With the exception of toilet bowl cleaner, we’ll get to that later.)

The Products I Use & Love:

I basically own Blueland’s whole range of products at this point. I’m never going back to single use plastic bottles/containers for my cleaning supplies. I wish this post was sponsored by them, but it’s not, lol.

Best Overall Sustainable Cleaning Brands:

(To me, that actually work, are accessible, are affordable, & of course, far more sustainable than some brand owned by Procter & Gamble.)

Grove Co. at Target -All Refillable & Recyclable packaging! Cruelty Free & B Certified Corporation!
Blueland -All of Blueland’s products are refillable & come in compostable &/or recyclable packaging. They are also a Cruelty Free & B Certified Corporation! Their products actually save you money too! Again, this is good for the planet and your wallet! Also, because they do the small, tablet refills, you will save so much space in your cabinets/drawers! No more clunky plastic bottles, just small refill packets. Which is great if you’re on a minimalism/decluttering journey like us!
Ever Spring at Target -Their packaging is made from 100% recycled plastic & are cruelty free, which is great! They are NOT a B Certified corporation though. We want to make sure we support companies or brands that are using 100% recycled packaging to encourage them to keep doing it & show other brands that they should be doing it too if they want our money. With that being said, I try to avoid disposable packaging in general, so I generally prefer Blueland now, then fill in the gaps with the Grove Co. because I can get refills through them instead of buying a whole bottle every time.

Laundry:

Blueland Laundry Tablets -I drop 1-2 tablets in with every load of laundry.
Blueland Oxi Laundry Booster -You also don’t need to buy their containers, you can reuse a jar you already have and just fill it with their product!
Dryer Buddies -Bought them years ago at Target, mine are pufferfish, but now they’re hedgehogs. Good for the planet, but a lot cuter than wool dryer balls. They truly are my dryer buddies. 🙂 Wool Dryer balls are great too!!

Bathroom:

Blueland Bathroom Spray -I just reused my old scrubbing bubbles spray bottle & put their product in instead. I use it for pretty much everything in my bathroom.
Then I will admit I still use my Clorox toilet bowl cleaner, because I want to make sure my toilet is truly clean & disinfected. (Edit: Blueland came out with a toilet bowl cleaner, but it is way more expensive than the one I currently use, so I am not switching to it yet.)
Blueland Hand Soap -For this, I would recommend buying their soap pump because it is a foaming hand soap, so it won’t work with all soap pumps.
Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper -Made from recycled paper! Or you can choose their bamboo option.

Dishes:

Blueland Dish Tablets -I’ve used Cascade for years & I don’t notice a difference in how clean my dishes are when I switched to the sustainable tablets instead, so they work just as well!
Casabella Kind Scrub Sponges -Not the most sustainable, but for me, Blueland’s sponges are currently too expensive to justify the price, so I buy these ones from Target. I’m still trying to find a better option.
Grove Co. Dish soap -I’m switching to this after I use up my last tiny bit of Dawn. It looks like it will work well, has amazing reviews, and is a cruelty free & B Certified Corporation!

Miscellaneous:

Blueland Window Cleaner -Essentially Windex, but sustainable.
Blueland Multi-Surface Spray -It works well, but I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the scent, but that’s just me.
Grove Co. Multi-Surface Cleaner – I love the smell of this one more than the Blueland. (Citron & White Rose) Also, it is at Target.
Wood Surface Cleaner by Ever Spring– I like the smell of this one a lot too (lemon & mint). I have a lot of wood furniture, so I wanted a special cleaner for it because the multi-surface cleaners weren’t cutting it.
I do use things like baking soda, vinegar, & hydrogen peroxide every now and then for random, special cleaning hacks; like getting my baking sheets clean or soaking my shower head.

Thank you so much for reading & I hope this helped someone out out there!

Let’s clean our homes while keeping our Earth clean! 😉

If you liked this post, then you’ll probably like these ones too:

4 Reasons Why You Should Sell Your Car NOW:

I hate it when writers mess around and take a long time to get to the point of their post, and I have to keep scrolling & scrolling. You know what I mean, so I am just going to jump right into it:

Car values have appreciated for the first time ever. This is huge. You will literally never get more money for the car you own than right now. The car lots are nearly empty & the dealerships will gladly pay you for your vehicle. I know this because we just sold my husband’s car to a dealership & they’re desperate for vehicles, particularly cars. Here is my last post: our August Financial Update where I give a bit more information, like how much we sold the car for. If you’ve been toying with the idea of selling a vehicle, do it, now. You won’t regret it, if you do, you can always buy another vehicle when the prices go back down again. There is no better time to sell your car, & probably won’t ever be, unless we have another global crises that shuts down most manufacturing for a year+. This is the biggest reason why I wanted to publish this post as soon as possible, it is time sensitive.
It will save you money over time. Besides getting a huge check for your vehicle, it will also save you so much money monthly. No more car payment, insurance, gas, oil changes, new wipers, registration, etc. (For us, we’re saving $540/month now!)
Selling your car is better for the planet. If you sell your car, or maybe go down to one vehicle for your household, you will ride your bike, walk, car pool, or take public transportation instead. These are all more preferable for the Earth.
Finally, it can be great for your physical health. If you don’t always have access to a car, you may walk or bike to your destination instead. If you are using public transportation, you will have to walk to the nearest bus stop or train station. Bonus: if you are taking public transportation, then you can do whatever you want while traveling to your destination, read, get some work done, make a call, etc.

Selling your car, or going down in the number of vehicles you own, is wonderful for the Earth, your wallet, & your health! Win, win, win! These are the main reasons why we sold our vehicle. We also happen to work a block away from each other, work similar hours, are only a 15 min bike ride from our jobs, & I work from home a lot now too.

The top concern I hear when people are hesitating with selling a vehicle is: “What if my spouse & I both want to or have to be somewhere during the same time or day?”. This is my rebuttal: that scenario is a lot more infrequent than you think, but when it does happen, you two can car pool & drop one off first. Then if someone needs to get back home before the other person, they can either wait, order a Lyft or Uber, use public transportation, get a ride from a family member, friend, or co-worker, walk, use an electric scooter, or bike. Or, for example, the wife can simply drop the husband off at work & take the car back home or to their job with them, then come pick up the husband once they are done with work.

Of course, there are some households where it is necessary to have multiple vehicles. This post is about analyzing the vehicles you own to see if it is truly necessary, and maybe it is!

There are so many options! We, especially in the U.S., just default to having 1 vehicle per adult in the household, which is usually not necessary. It isn’t that hard to think of alternative ways to get you from point A to point B.

How many vehicles do you own? What is your primary transportation method? Would you sell your car? Are there any additional pros or cons of selling your car or going down to one vehicle you would like to add? Was this post helpful?

As always, thanks for reading!

August 2021 Financial Update:

August has been the busiest month of the year so far for us. I had so many work events, I had 3 at the same casino an hour & a half away from me all within a week of each other. We went to a waterpark (hour & 1/2 away) for 2 nights with my family for my mom & I’s Birthdays (I turned 23). We drove two hours away to go see Green Day, Weezer, & Fall Out Boy in concert. Brandon went 2 hours north with friends to disc golf for an entire day. We paid off Brandon’s car. We celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary. Brandon bought a bike and I got my electrical issue in my car fixed finally. I also got a bike, but for free, it was my little sister’s that she never uses. It has been a whirl wind of a month. Almost every day had some sort of event or appointment.

Oh, and we sold Brandon’s car! We got $15,800 for it! This alone made us reach our next two financial goals! We actually paid it off on August 2nd, then sold it on August 28th.

*When I am writing this post, we haven’t gotten the check just yet & it won’t clear in our account until early September, so that money will be reflected on next month’s financial update!

Our Net Worth has been going up by $10,000/month for the last 4-5 months straight, this makes it easier to project where we’ll be at financially in the future. For example, that means we should hit $200,000 Net Worth by the end of April, 2022. Of course, there are things that can pop up & derail this, or unexpected money that could make us reach this goal faster, nobody knows.

We are getting to the point in our financial journey where things are really speeding up. We’re reaching our goals faster than we thought and are following through on a huge check list I made a year and a half ago about how to cut back on our expenses. Once you start getting serious about your finances, it all snowballs. It gets easier & easier, faster & faster. The beginning portion is an up hill struggle, but once you reach the summit (this point is different for everyone, but I think for us it was hitting $100,000 Net Worth) it all of a sudden becomes way easier & gravity starts helping you out. I think we are on the other side of the mountain now & the snowball is rolling itself down, but we’re still pushing it hard.

Our monthly expenses before we paid off the car & sold it, were $3,000/month. We no longer have to pay for a car payment ($340), more gas, car insurance, & car maintenance, such as car washes, oil changes, tires, wipers, etc. ($200/mo. average) We’ve also tried to reduce our expenses a bit in other areas. Our expenses are now only $2,400 a month! An extra $600 a month in the budget which we will now put towards the mortgage! That means half of our monthly expenses now is the mortgage, which is $1,200. -We have a 15 year loan that we refinanced to in 2020. That is why our mortgage payment is kind of high for the size of our house & loan.

*Random cat update: They are getting along great & we’ve decided to stick with the name Shadow! Our friends who had him before named him that because he just copies & follows whatever cat(s) he lives with & we’ve discovered for ourselves it’s true! So Shadow perfectly describes him and we’re keeping the name. 🙂

Here is a refresher on our plan:

Pay off B’s Car (August 2021) –Check!
Hit $18,000+ In Savings (I have to save more with my new role because I will be self employed & need to pay a lot more in taxes. I want to replenish it to 18k after I pay taxes.) (≈ Oct 2021) –Check! (Once the check clears Sept. 1st or 2nd)
Max out Roth IRA contributions for 2021 (≈ Dec 2021) (Max out every year’s contributions until we “retire”) –Check! (Once the check clears Sept. 1st or 2nd.)
Put all extra $$$$ on the mortgage (until paid off).
Leave full time employment! (If we or one of us wants to)

All that is left is putting extra $$$$ on our mortgage every month until it is paid off & then do the maximum contributions for our Roth IRAs annually! -By my calculations, we should have our mortgage paid off by the end of 2024. I’m thinking we can do it sooner, but if we decide to go down to part time work instead or have one of us leave our job, then that may slow it down, which is fine. Our ultimate goal is to not have to work full time.

Our Current Numbers as of September 1st, 2021:

$40,858.41 Invested (Our Roth IRAs)
$12,303.16 In Savings
-$125,707.27 In Debt (Mortgage only!)
We are both still working full time.

Our Partial Financial Independence Goal Numbers:

$100,000+ invested, for retirement.
$25,000+ In Savings for Emergencies.
An HSA we are Maxing out every year while working for Medical Expenses. (No specific Goal Number)
$0 Personal Debt- No Mortgage Payment brings down our expenses a ton ($1,200/month).
With husband & I working part time (or one of us not at all).

Total amount needed to reach partial F.I. Goals: $197,545.70

Total Financial Independence Goal Numbers:

$900,000 Invested
$36,000 In Savings
$0 Debt
Both of us have the choice to leave any & all employment

Total amount needed to reach total F.I.R.E. Goals: $1,008,545.70

My Links:

BetterHelp -A week of Therapy for FREE!
Betterment -Invest your first $5,000 for FREE!
Back Market -My referral code: 6888f588d6f85083 -$10 off your order! Refurbished Tech! My sister & I both got “new” phones from there. They’re awesome, great quality, so much cheaper than buying new (by up to 70%), came super fast, was super easy to buy, AND we saved 123 pounds of carbon emissions, each!

20 Things You Can Do (For FREE) Instead of Sitting on Your Phone:

I’m sure you, like me, waste hours & hours of your life a week scrolling on social media, watching YouTube, watching Netflix, watching Twitch, scrolling on news sites, etc.

Here are 20 ideas of what to do instead (in no particular order) for FREE:

Call or FaceTime a family member or friend.
Go for a walk or run (I prefer walking).
Tidy up your house.
Do the laundry & dishes you’re avoiding.
Read a book you already have & have been wanting to read.
Write -anything, what you’re feeling, what’s on your mind, plan, a story, etc.
Try to hang out with a friend or family member.
Go on a bike ride or for a hike.
Play a board or card game with someone you live with.
See if any events are going on in your town today or this week.
Practice an instrument.
Meditate or pray or Manifest.
Do an exercise/workout you enjoy -can be as long or as short as you want.
Declutter and/or organize a drawer, closet, or cabinet. (Or a whole room.)
Do an errand or make a call you’ve been putting off.
Do other cleaning you’re procrastinating on, just start & do it for 5 min.
Paint, draw, color, crochet, sew, etc. something.
Cook -Eat and/or Drink something healthy.
Bake something.
Play a video game with a friend or family member.

Feel free to come back and reference this list whenever you notice you keep picking up your phone, keep watching Netflix, or if you’re just feeling bored. -I know I will!

If you’re new to this blog, I post about my husband and I’s journey to financial independence, about us pursuing an eco-minimalist lifestyle, and a bit about spirituality/personal content. -I post weekly.

Thanks for reading!

Learning To Say No:

To start, this post was inspired by the Beautiful Minimal Millennial. She made a post talking about 3 things she always says “no” to. I decided to asses where I’m at with saying “no” too, since it also happens to be something I’m working on, so that I can say “yes” more to what matters most.

(I think her post was for subscribers only, because I got it via email & I can’t find it on her blog any more, just a heads up.)

Saying no is very important and powerful. I believe most of us need to say it more often.

Saying no is something that I’ve been working hard on. My husband and I have made the conscious choice to prioritize our health, our relationships, an eco-minimalist lifestyle, & achieving financial independence/becoming debt free.

Whatever it is we are deciding to say yes or no to, it needs to align with one of those goals for us to say yes to it.

When it comes to anything work related, I’m not great at saying no. In my line of business, you have a lot of flexibility in your schedule, but that means there are many events that happen on the evenings, not just during the work day.

If anyone has any tips on how to say no to work stuff when you’re self employed, feel free to help a girl out. 😅

Saying no is hard, particularly if you’re a woman. We’re trained to smile & say yes even if we’re uncomfortable or don’t want to do something. At least, that’s my experience, but I’m ready to change that & have been.

We have drastically improved at saying no to physical items & to things that are less sustainable. For example, I was just at a work insurance conference & denied taking a ton of SWAG, including a goodie bag. The man was very convincing who was trying to give me the goodie bag, kept persisting & asking: “are you sure? There’s some good stuff in here.” But I held my ground, just smiling saying: “No thank you, I don’t need any of that. Thank you though, I appreciate it.” I knew we didn’t need any of it & it would just clutter up our house. Also, my husband this weekend threw out stuff his grandma kept for 10 years and tried to give him. I’ve rejected a couple items from my mom recently as well. So we’re doing very well on the minimalism front. Though, we still have a long way to go.

We have also done a much better job of prioritizing our health & relationships over this summer. My husband just bought a bike & I stole my sister’s that she never uses. We are going to start riding bikes more instead of driving to work. This is good for our health, our wallets, & the earth! Win, win, win. We are probably going to sell my car, if the biking situation works out. My husband has also been spending a lot of time out disc golfing with friends, which is good for his relationships & health. I have been spending a lot more time with my siblings recently than I ever have before, now that they’re getting older I can actually relate to them a bit & talk with them (They’re only 11 & 13). I’ve been reading & writing a ton too, rather than sitting on my phone.

As for becoming financially independent/debt free, we have cut out basically all unnecessary spending, other than a few small things that we have a plan for & we could stop eating out as much as we do, but I think we’ve gotten it down to approximately 2x a week we eat out. My husband manages at a restaurant so he gets a free meal every shift he works & I used to work there too & everyone knows me so they give me a meal or two free a week which is great! It’s seriously almost $100/week in free food if you do the math.

In conclusion, we’re doing well with saying no. I just need to work on saying no with work related things. I want to try and streamline what I’m working on.

As always, thanks for reading, & thanks again to the Beautiful Minimal Millennial.

Are you working on saying no? And if so, what are you working on saying no to?

How Minimalism Has Changed Our Lives So Far:

I want to start by saying, thank you so much for all the love on my last post: I Think I’m a Buddhist?. I was very surprised at the response to it! I appreciate every single person that engages with my posts at all, so thank YOU!

My husband and I have been obsessed with Minimalism over the last year or so and we are starting to notice the benefits of it.

I believe sharing our positive experiences with minimalism so far may convince others to pursue it as well, you won’t regret it!

The Benefits of Minimalism we’ve already noticed:

We spend way less money. This is because after you declutter your house of all the things you realize you’ve wasted money on, you’re not keen to do it again. It’s hard working through those feelings of guilt, shame, regret, grief, etc. but once you do, the skies clear & you’re ready to move on & not make the same mistakes again. We really pause before we buy anything now & usually end up not buying anything.
We have more time. We didn’t really notice a lack of time, but who doesn’t want more of it? This is huge for people who feel like they don’t have enough hours in the day. We have more free time because, when your house has a minimal amount of stuff, it pretty much stays tidy & is much easier to clean. If it does get untidy, everything has a spot & it takes just 5-15 min to pick everything up & put it away. -There is less inventory to manage! We also don’t waste time looking for things anymore! Again, we know what we have & where it is.
We feel less stressed. It is a proven fact that seeing clutter releases Cortisol (the stress hormone) into our brain! There is an idea that each item in our home sends out a message to us, which if you think about it, it’s true. Old clothes you can’t fit in might be saying: “Why can’t you fit in me? Why don’t you exercise more?” -causing guilt/shame, or a gift from a friend you never use may make you feel guilty every time you look at it. Isn’t it better to let those things go so that they can have a chance at a life where they’re actually used? & so they can no longer mock you. Having less stuff means you have less on your “silent to do list”, dishes can’t pile up for days if you only have enough for a day of meals, same can be said for laundry, & so much more. All of these reasons explain why it feels good to go on vacation & stay in a hotel or vacation home. There is no clutter, no items sending us negative messages, & no silent to do list (no laundry piling up screaming: You need to do me!). With that being said…
We don’t feel like we need a vacation. We love our home. We don’t feel like we need to escape our home & forget about our to do list for a while. We’ve made our home functional & enjoyable, we always want to be home now.
Increased focus. We no longer get distracted by the stuff around us or the “silent to do list”. Yeah, we need to do a load of laundry & dishes pretty much daily, but that’s about it, and those two things can become an easy habit very quickly. There is just less to focus on or remember to do. It’s wonderful.
Our house stays clean & tidy. I’ve touched on why this is above, but I thought I should add it to the list. Again, it’s fast & easy to pick stuff up & to clean.
We consume less, decreasing our carbon footprint & environmental impact! Now that we don’t buy things really, other than food, we’ve drastically reduced our consumption! Which is great for so many reasons.

I’m sure I could think of more, but these are the most prominent & important benefits we’ve experienced so far.

My favorite minimalism content people -link to my resources page.

Have you tried minimalism? How was it? Would you ever try being more minimalist? Why or why not?

I Think I’m a Buddhist?

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com

This post may be a little controversial. I am just going to start by saying I 100% respect all religions & beliefs as long as you’re not using your religion as a reason to harm or take rights away from others. It’s that simple.

Like many people, I was raised Christian. Not hard-core Christian, but we went to church every now & then, and I went to a Catholic school up through 3rd grade. I quickly realized I was not a Christian & then defined myself as agnostic atheist (I think in very early Middle School), up until I would say the last 3-ish years. Then I realized I was more spiritual than I thought and had just been ignoring/denying my own spirituality all together. So over the last 3-ish years I’ve defined myself more loosely as “spiritual”. Although, I never really told anybody that. I don’t talk too much about religion & spirituality in my personal life, only with my husband and a friend or two. People can get very judgmental & heated when it comes to religion/spirituality, which is too bad. I would love to talk about it more, more openly. I love learning about why people believe what they do.

Even more recently, I’ve realized that I want a bit more structure again when it comes to my spiritual practice. I decided to look into Buddhism more, since it seemed to be (based off of the tiny amount of knowledge I had about it) the religion that aligns with me most.

To a lot of people, Buddhism isn’t actually defined as a religion, but rather a “way of life” or “philosophy” or “a set of fundamental beliefs”, which I prefer.

Now that I’ve read up a bit on Buddhism, it turns out I am an accidental Buddhist & already believe/practice most of the core principles of Buddhism. -This was a shock for me. I of course am not perfect and need to continue to learn & grow. I also want to point out, I am absolutely not following the rules of the Buddhist monks, that is another whole level that sounds very extreme & challenging (to me).

Here are some links I read to learn a bit more about Buddhism: Buddhist Core Values & Perspectives and History.com.

I deeply agree with The Three Universal Truths, The Four Noble Truths, The Five Precepts, & The Eightfold Path, which are the core principles of Buddhism.

There are many different forms of Buddhism, so I am not sure what type of Buddhism resonates most with me, but they all have the same core principles. Just like other religions, such as Christianity & Islam.

Even if you don’t plan on practicing another religion (or religion in general), I suggest looking them up & learning more about them. It will help open up your mind a bit, help you be more empathetic, and you might even realize a different religion aligns with you, like I did! You might surprise yourself.

In conclusion, I guess I’m studying & trying to practice Buddhism now. I wasn’t expecting to learn that about myself today, but here we are!

A weird side note: As I was reading up on Buddhism & realizing this is what I spiritually align with, a bird flew into my window, the screened part & just sat their clinging to the screen with its little twig feet, flapping, & staring at me. I will take it as a sign. A sign of what, I’m not sure. Okay, now as I was typing this, another bird (maybe the same one) did it again haha. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think it’s good. I think it’s letting me know, yes, this is the right choice, spiritually, for me.