Spinoff thread: Large Families and One Bag Minimalism

[insideitall]

this was a really interesting thread to read!

I don’t have much to add, except to note that re: mattress on the floor - boxsprings provide circulation that a mattress flat on the ground doesn’t get. with my first apt, I was too cheap to buy a boxspring and ended up with mold underneath it…

 

[Sophie_Lawrence]

No, I don’t have a spiritual advisor. Yes, we are purging a great deal, but our focus is upon what we want to keep and then letting go of anything that isn’t either useful or beautiful to us.

This is not like physical mortification, because there is no pain involved and we are actually making ourselves few more comfortable and happy through this process.

But I truly appreciate your kind concern. God bless you, Sophie!

I only mentioned the spiritual advisor because I understood that these changes you’ve been implementing are religiously based. I thought it would be of benefit to help determine what is God’s will vs your will.

 

[jmjZelie]

I only mentioned the spiritual advisor because I understood that these changes you’ve been implementing are religiously based. I thought it would be of benefit to help determine what is God’s will vs your will.

Yes, I understood what you meant, Sophie. Thank you. We have been prayerfully discerning each step of this process first as a couple and then working toward mutual decisions as a family. Because it is very personal and over the period of nearly two decades of marriage, it is impossible to explain how we know that this is God’s will for us. But we do know it, and in fact we have had many conversations about how thankful we are that God has given us clarity in these decisions. But I truly appreciate your charitable concern.

 

[jmjZelie]

The minimalist by choice life is just trading one kind of dependency and first-world wealth for another.

I don’t see how we are trading anything, actually. We are still dependent upon our neighborhood and community and parish and city and state and nation. And even upon other nations. Or rather we are part of an interdependent society. If you are speaking of welfare dependency, then no, that would not be accurate. But if you are speaking about the fact that we depend upon having clean, running water and reliable electricity and pest control and roads and stores and playgrounds and parks and other people to enjoy all those things with, then yes, we are happily interdependent. We are very grateful for our material blessings, and realize that even if we say “no thank you” to certain material blessings that we do not feel the need to own or maintain, we are still within the top 5% of the world’s population in terms of wealth and lifestyle (many Westerners are). In fact, saying “no thank you” to certain material blessings allows people to free up more of their budget (or savings) for charitable giving.

In the New Testament, in one of St. Paul’s epistles, he exhorts Christians both to carry their own burdens and to help each other carry their burdens. So, interdependency, in the idea of working hard and earning a wage and living below one’s means and then supporting others in their need is biblical. So is paying taxes of those wages to support local and national infrastructure and government, for Jesus said to render unto Caesar what it Caesar’s.

We are not trying to opt out of human society or out of mutually-beneficial dependency when we choose to have fewer clothes or toys, or give our old table to a charity. I hope this explanation addresses your concern. Thanks for your feedback.

 

[jmjZelie]

this was a really interesting thread to read!

I don’t have much to add, except to note that re: mattress on the floor - boxsprings provide circulation that a mattress flat on the ground doesn’t get. with my first apt, I was too cheap to buy a boxspring and ended up with mold underneath it…

You know, I recently read about this and I was surprised. We have gone with a mattress on the floor for the great majority of our marriage (19 years) and we have never had a mold problem. But we have also moved about 15 or so times in those years, and even within our house, we are constantly moving furniture around. Our mattress is never in the same place for more than about six months at a stretch, and even then, every once and a while, I stand it up on end to air it out and vacuum underneath. Maybe that is why we never had the problem. I hope we never do!

 

[gardenswithkids]

this was a really interesting thread to read!

I don’t have much to add, except to note that re: mattress on the floor - boxsprings provide circulation that a mattress flat on the ground doesn’t get. with my first apt, I was too cheap to buy a boxspring and ended up with mold underneath it…

Thank you for mentioning that. I’d strongly caution the op against getting rid of her children’s bed frames. Bed frames serve a purpose for health and safety. As this poster shared, they help with air circulation to prevent mold and mildew. In addition, various pests crawl on the floor, so sleeping slightly elevated on a bed frame a foot or so above the ground reduces the chance of creepy things crawling on and biting the sleeper.

Bed frames don’t have to be fancy or expensive.

 

[jmjZelie]

I suspect this is why I couldn’t do it. My family cannot afford to be minimalists. I have to stockpile certain things because there is no guarantee that if a genuine need were to come up, we could afford to pay whatever the current price is. Because I watch price trends and hold onto things, I have a lot more purchasing power than just buying things as I need them.

I’m all about no clutter and buying only what you need or will use. I grew up in a hoarder house and that environment was toxic. But you bet I use underbed storage containers for my linens, so my linen closet is an extension of my pantry.

People have always saved things, and I think that’s OK.

We keep extra canned goods and bottled spring water on hand and we keep two sets of bed and bath linens per person. We do not stockpile toiletries any longer. I did the couponing thing for a while and within a couple months, I had a closet full of toiletries that I got for really cheap (following all the rules of the expert couponers). We had to end up donating some of it and throwing away some of it because we got close to or beyond the expiration date before we could use it. So now I just follow sales and buy slightly ahead of a need. It works much better for us.

The minimalism I have been attempting to describe here (and hopefully not failing to communicate) has to do with personal belongings, such as clothes and books and toys and electronics. We still have a homeschool and a household to run. I don’t intend to neglect my duties as a housewife or a mother. I am just having fun with the process of discovering where the balance point is. How many outfits does a person need? How many toys are just right for our size family, for the age of the child, for the size of our home? How many physical books do we need or want, or can we utilize the library or the Kindle to reduce that to a manageable level? What furniture do we really need or enjoy, and what just gets in the way? What belongings bring us joy, and what just causes headaches? What will comfortably make a home, and what gets in the way of the mobility and portability we need?

It sounds like you are prudent and taking into account the answers to all these questions already. It is just that your answers are different from my own. I have always admired your careful and diligent efforts to provide for your family. So my efforts to downsize our lifestyle should not be construed as a knock on your choices.

 

[jmjZelie]

Thank you for mentioning that. I’d strongly caution the op against getting rid of her children’s bed frames. Bed frames serve a purpose for health and safety. As this poster shared, they help with air circulation to prevent mold and mildew. In addition, various pests crawl on the floor, so sleeping slightly elevated on a bed frame a foot or so above the ground reduces the chance of creepy things crawling on and biting the sleeper.

Bed frames don’t have to be fancy or expensive.

All of the children still do have their bed frames. They are currently in bunks. We can’t pack all these kids into their beds any other way at this point, anyway, so that is a moot point for now. And based upon my research, the lower bed frames are enough elevation for health and low enough for safety and light enough for portability. So if we abandon the bunking system at some point (we are thinking of swapping rooms with our girls because the girls are wall-to-wall beds in their room already, without the baby) then we will probably opt for one of those light, low, wooden ones for each girl.

 

[Sophie_Lawrence]

Thank you for mentioning that. I’d strongly caution the op against getting rid of her children’s bed frames. Bed frames serve a purpose for health and safety. As this poster shared, they help with air circulation to prevent mold and mildew. In addition, various pests crawl on the floor, so sleeping slightly elevated on a bed frame a foot or so above the ground reduces the chance of creepy things crawling on and biting the sleeper.

Bed frames don’t have to be fancy or expensive.

Thanks for mentioning this. My daughter had a wood framed bed. Instead of a bed frame she had wood slats. This past summer, she and my son were sitting on it and it collapsed. I think their combined weight was only about 175 pounds.

Since then her mattress has been on the floor basically because we haven’t found a good replacement. I think I’ll expedite getting at least the frame.

 

[Xantippe]

Thanks for mentioning this. My daughter had a wood framed bed. Instead of a bed frame she had wood slats. This past summer, she and my son were sitting on it and it collapsed. I think their combined weight was only about 175 pounds.

Since then her mattress has been on the floor basically because we haven’t found a good replacement. I think I’ll expedite getting at least the frame.

!!!

One of my kids has a cheap captain’s bed with a particle board platform over the drawers. I have a lot of concerns about what it can actually support.

(I really like captain’s beds for kids, by the way–it’s nice to be able to keep extra bedding right there and I allot one drawer for the child’s personal archive.)

 

[ThePCWife]

I don’t see how we are trading anything, actually. We are still dependent upon our neighborhood and community and parish and city and state and nation. And even upon other nations. Or rather we are part of an interdependent society. If you are speaking of welfare dependency, then no, that would not be accurate. But if you are speaking about the fact that we depend upon having clean, running water and reliable electricity and pest control and roads and stores and playgrounds and parks and other people to enjoy all those things with, then yes, we are happily interdependent. We are very grateful for our material blessings, and realize that even if we say “no thank you” to certain material blessings that we do not feel the need to own or maintain, we are still within the top 5% of the world’s population in terms of wealth and lifestyle (many Westerners are). In fact, saying “no thank you” to certain material blessings allows people to free up more of their budget (or savings) for charitable giving.

In the New Testament, in one of St. Paul’s epistles, he exhorts Christians both to carry their own burdens and to help each other carry their burdens. So, interdependency, in the idea of working hard and earning a wage and living below one’s means and then supporting others in their need is biblical. So is paying taxes of those wages to support local and national infrastructure and government, for Jesus said to render unto Caesar what it Caesar’s.

We are not trying to opt out of human society or out of mutually-beneficial dependency when we choose to have fewer clothes or toys, or give our old table to a charity. I hope this explanation addresses your concern. Thanks for your feedback.

No, I mean you’ve said you expect to be able to always rent equipment, which is wealth in a different way than buying something and putting it in an attic to take down occasionally. It’s like carless people who expect zipcar to be available exactly when they need it. That’s fine, but it’s not less dependent than people who bought a car and don’t use it as much. Heck, the leisure to painstakingly draw up a minimalism plan and enact it is a big privilege and sign of wealth. As is the reliance on electronics to replace print media.

I just find explicit minimalism to be attacking a symptom rather than the disease. YMMV. But I’m from a cultural background where making a special point to be rootless seems very unnatural. I guess I’ve got no nomad blood.

 

[jmjZelie]

No, I mean you’ve said you expect to be able to always rent equipment, which is wealth in a different way than buying something and putting it in an attic to take down occasionally. It’s like carless people who expect zipcar to be available exactly when they need it. That’s fine, but it’s not less dependent than people who bought a car and don’t use it as much. Heck, the leisure to painstakingly draw up a minimalism plan and enact it is a big privilege and sign of wealth. As is the reliance on electronics to replace print media.

I just find explicit minimalism to be attacking a symptom rather than the disease. YMMV. But I’m from a cultural background where making a special point to be rootless seems very unnatural. I guess I’ve got no nomad blood.

That is fair. I don’t expect all people to understand or want to do the same. I know I am a bit of an oddball, and I am okay with it. But my circumstances have required me to be happy being nomadic, and I am miserable if I try to pretend otherwise. I have not considered the topic of dependency for two reasons: first, I am not aiming for self-sufficiency or off-the-grid living (we mostly have lived in urban areas), and second, I have lived all but one year of my two decades of adulthood far away from any family, and have moved at least a dozen times. I am also not trying to pretend that I am not wealthy. I admitted in the first post that my husband comes from a wealthy family, and we have a wealthy and privileged lifestyle. I am very grateful for that, and even though we still have some financial challenges and setbacks over the years, the reality is still a very comfortable lifestyle.

I am extremely nomadic by nature, which is good considering what life has thrown at me. So is my husband. His new goal is to be able to load a small moving truck on his own and unload it the same day to get us totally moved. Thanks to the feedback here from all of you, we are able to figure out how to make certain decisions (we found a good solution for the beds, as an example) in order to keep our lives fun and livable and safe and healthy.

Edited to add: what do you mean by attacking the symptom rather than the disease? I am unclear about what symptom or disease you observe in my posts. Can you elaborate? thanks.