If you have read some of my posts like “SOLD,” you may have noticed that Laurie and I are on quite the journey. Looking at the two main factors in getting anywhere financially speaking, our income has to go up and/or our outgo has to go down. Though the income side of things is important, we have taken a serious look at the outgo side of things.
I have to tell you, taking a hard look at your needs and wants and making sure they are in the right category is not the easiest thing to do. Why is that? I hate to admit it but here are some of the thoughts that ran through my head in justifying some of the things that we are now subtracting from our lives:
- I deserve this
- I worked hard for this
- Now they’ll think I’m a somebody
- The thoughts go on…
In essence, it was our pride, along with what this culture has taught us, fighting against what some call being minimalistic. I’m a big proponent in buying things only when you have the money saved up for it. But even if you follow certain steps and end up with the money to buy stuff, that still may be all you have, stuff.
Making a change in a different direction can be done by anyone but why turn down information from someone who is walking the talk? It just so happened that I was listening to a podcast at coachradio.tv and Joshua Becker was being interviewed about the process that he went through in taking his minimalistic lifestyle from a passion to making an income from it. All of this led me to Joshua’s blog that has a great prospective of the minimalistic lifestyle. Very worth checking it out.
Though I’m sure the term minimalist means something different to each who pursue it, my family is on a journey to find out what it means to us, in hopes that it will enable us to live out our dreams that much quicker.
So what is the main thing I’ve learned thus far? All can be lost on this earth but as long as I have my family I will still have it all.
Make sure the things that have your attention actually matter!