Less Is More | Reduce Clutter | Save Money | Spend Less Money |Voluntary Simplicity | Frugal Living

Less is More

If you ask most Americans, they'll tell you that they'd like to have "more". We all wish we had more time, more space, more money, more things. Yet if you look at the popularity of shows like "Clean Sweep" and "Neat" it becomes clear that we are drowning in stuff! So how much is enough? Do you really use and enjoy all of the things that you currently own? Open the nearest closet, or drawer, or cupboard... do you even know what's in there?

Perhaps instead of yearning for more, we'd actually be happier if we had less... Less stuff to store and maintain, fewer rooms to clean and fewer commitments to honor. Wouldn't that really mean that you had more room, more time and more money in the bank?

Imagine, for a moment, how much money you would have saved if instead of buying those clothes, or knick knacks or whatever it was that you couldn't live without, you had taken that money and put it in the bank. What if you had time to really appreciate and enjoy the things that you do have? How much energy would you save if you didn't have to deal with clutter and chaos?

Why Do We Buy Things We Don't Really Want or Need?

It seemed like such a good idea at the time, didn't it? It was going to make your life easier, or save you time or make you happy, or make you feel more important. Did it? How long did the feeling last?

Emotional Spending

The problem is that many of us are trying to fill an emotional void with things, and it just doesn't work. We are flooded with glamorous images of people on TV and in the movies who have more than we do... and they seem happy.

We convince ourselves that we should be rewarded with things, when in reality, every time you take on a new thing, you take on a new responsibility. Things require storage, cleaning and maintenance, not to mention the time that went in to earning the money to buy the thing in the first place!

So the next time you're tempted to "treat yourself" to some new item, stop and think about how much it's really going to cost you. Maybe you'll decide that it would be more of a treat to put that money in the bank and chalk up a few more dollars worth of freedom.