Why and how i began my journey into minimalism

The first thing I did was buy myself a plant... just kidding, this came later.

The why.

To make lifestyle changes there is sometimes a trigger, for me it was the shock of coming across my ebay seller account total for the last 15 years on ebay and this amount being more than I have. How is this possible i asked myself. This hit me hard because I am currently saving for a deposit for my first home... there was the money right there, only it wasn't.

So where was it? I looked around me and the answer was right there in front of me, literally, for everything i sold I replaced with another.... or two. There and then i decided i needed to make some changes, i remembered the minimalism documentary i had watched recently and these words came back to me.

Does this add value to my life?

I started asking myself this question of my possessions... did that bluray that i enjoyed but will never watch again add value to my life? Does the graphic novel gathering dust that i don't think i'll read, ever? How about the old Mac computer that hasn't been switched on in 7 months? I started to resent all these items, what were they doing here, wasting money and space? 

If you only ever take away one thing from minimalism, make it this question.

The how.

Some people may think of minimalism as getting rid of all your possessions and never buying anything unless absolutely essential, for me this couldn't be further from the truth. My friend even joked that my minimalism blog should just be a blank page.

My biggest passion is cinema so I have bought many DVD's and Blurays over time, how to apply minimalism to hobbies? In particular collections? Ask the question 'does this add value to my life?' - I applied this question to every item in my collection and reduced my collection down to just a few of my absolute favourites, I have a beautiful Mondo edition of one of my favourite ever films, Possession, you couldn't pry this from my cold dead hands. This clearly passes the 'does it add value to my life?' test.  I think you will surprise yourself at the answer for much of your material possessions.

Little by little I am clawing back money and space, I now have room for the aforementioned plant, every minimalist needs a plant.

Aloe Vera - part of NASA's top 10 plants list

A quick tip if you do use ebay or want to, put your items on Thursday night at 8pm and run it for 10 days. This gives two weekends of exposure and finishes on a Sunday evening when people are most likely to be around to finish bidding on your items.

Things that are less valuable either went in the bin or charity shop, in particular clothes.

I feel like i should mention Lia's Loft video blog here as watching her video's helped me on this journey and provided inspiration to create my own blog.