Minimalist Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How To Reduce, Reuse, And Save More Cash

Last Updated: April 13, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 Comments

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Hi, this is Michelle’s editor, Ariel! You may have seen me here before talking about taking my side hustle full-time, living in a small house, and real life frugality. When I’m not working for Michelle, you can find me spending a lot of time over at M$M, working as a staff writer and editor-in-chief.

The other day I found myself asking this question in a popular FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Facebook group:

Anyone else focusing on a zero/low waste lifestyle and merging that principal with FI?

I asked this question because, while I don’t hang around in those kinds of communities a ton, I find that what I often see is more focused on sexier topics like investing strategies and increasing your income.

Both of those are incredibly valuable tools when you’re working to improve your financial health, even if you aren’t working towards FIRE, but I was searching for advice that felt a little more relatable to my personal goals.

It turns out that I wasn’t alone. [Read more…]

Learn how to downsize your home, stress free!

Last Updated: December 17, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 11 Comments

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Want to learn how to downsize your home? Here’s a downsizing home checklist so that you can downsize and declutter.

Are you ready for something simpler or smaller and wanting to know how to downsize your home? It can be big process and less and less people seem to be doing it these days.

The average home size in 1950 was less than 1,000 square feet. Fast forward to 2017, the average home size has increased to nearly 2,600 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Related posts:

When we did live in a “normal” home, it was fairly close to that average home size. The house we owned in the St. Louis, Missouri area was around 2,500 square feet if you included our finished basement, and it was just for myself, my husband, and our two dogs. [Read more…]

Smaller Can Be Better- Maximize Your Savings With A Small House

Last Updated: July 14, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 33 Comments

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Hi, I’m Ariel, Michelle’s sister-in-law and editor. I’ve been editing and learning from Michelle’s blog for over two years now, and if you’ve read any of the posts I’ve written for Michelle, you know I’m conscious about my savings and spending. I have a degree in English Literature, and I make a living as an editor, preschool teacher, and knitting instructor.

My husband and I were recently faced with the reality that we would have to find a new house and move. I’m not going to spend too much time on specifics, but it has to do with a retail development going smack dab on top of us.

We were only 19 and 20 years old when we bought our house and had very limited buying power. With what felt like nonexistent options, we fell in love the minute we walked into our little 900 sq ft. brick bungalow. It was the dreamhouse we never knew we wanted, and we were pretty certain we would never leave. [Read more…]

Are You Making Your Life Difficult? 18 Ideas To Simplify Your Life in 2022

Last Updated: March 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 51 Comments

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Learning ways to simplify your life in 2022 can completely change your life and future for the better.

Trying to manage your life, especially your financial life, can be difficult in today’s age. Between planning for retirement, paying bills, raising a family, etc. life can be exhausting. And, we all have a lot of clutter in our life – not just physical, mental as well!

Due to that, wouldn’t it be nice if you learned ways to simplify your life in 2022?

There is no better time than right now to start thinking about how to simplify your life for the future. The New Year is always a good time to make goals, and 2022 is the perfect year to focus on simplifying your life. You’ll be able to apply that knowledge and experience for years and years to come.

By simplifying your life, you can learn how to be happier, be in more control of your life, waste less of your valuable time, and more. All of this will allow you to enjoy life even more! [Read more…]

Less is More: Guide To Becoming a Minimalist

Last Updated: March 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 33 Comments

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Are you interested in becoming a minimalist? Or, maybe you just want to get rid of some clutter and extra nonsense in your life?

Whatever your reason may be, cutting back on the number of things you own can help you in many ways.

Here are some interesting facts about how clutter impacts our lives:

The average house has 300,000 items.
Nearly 10% of households also rent a self-storage unit.
The average person spends 12 days per year looking for things they can’t find.
Every day the average office worker spends 1.5 hours looking for things (when a simple filing system like one of these would solve this problem!).
In a recent survey, 55% of consumers stated they would save anywhere from 16 to 60 minutes a day if they were organized.
23% of people pay bills late and have to pay late fees because they are unable to find their bills.
In the last few decades, the average home has nearly tripled in size.

If you’re looking for blog posts on how to become a minimalist and becoming a minimalist, then you’ve come to the right place. [Read more…]

Stop Comparing Yourself To Others And Live Your Own Life

Last Updated: April 25, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 47 Comments

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I think we can probably all agree that your life might be different if you decided to stop comparing yourself to others.

Over the years, I’ve compared myself to others plenty of times. I’ve compared myself to others when it came to school, looks, money, and more. I know that sounds bad, but without acknowledging that, it would be hard to stop.

Many people compare themselves to others too.

In fact, everyone has done it at one point in their life.

People often compare themselves to others to determine how well they are doing in life and base their personal value on that. However, that usually doesn’t lead to feeling too good about yourself. Plus, who actually wants to judge themselves in a negative way? [Read more…]

59 Things To Do Instead of Watching TV So That You Can Take Your Life Back

Last Updated: May 9, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 74 Comments

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Did you know that the average person watches over 30 hours of TV a week? Even if you used just half of those hours finding things to do instead of watching TV, you could probably accomplish something great!

Now, I’m not completely hating on TV.

I have my favorite TV shows and can sit in front of a TV for hours on end.

However, for the most part, the average person probably spends way too much time just flipping through channels or watching something that they probably don’t even like.

We got rid of cable and even Netflix over one year ago (I recommend getting a digital antenna!), and it’s the best decision we’ve ever made. We’re able to save more money, we waste much less time on TV, and we’ve found plenty of better things to do instead of watching TV.

If you feel like you aren’t accomplishing your goals in life or that you are always pressed for time, then you should first analyze how much time you’re wasting each day, especially when it comes to how much TV you watch.

You may not even realize how much time you spend in front of the TV! [Read more…]