Road Blocks

I'm feeling stuck in a rut. I'm feeling tired of being Mummy. I'm feeling tired of doing the same things over and over, day in, day out. I'm tired of our debts hanging over our heads like a big reminder of our less-than-smart decisions.

I just want to hit the ground running and just feel like there's all these road blocks (or are they excuses?) that are stopping me. They seem to be stopping me in all aspects of my life currently.

My most common road blocks are:

1. The Kids
2. Sickness
3. Focus
4. Space
5. Energy

Really, these road blocks are totally avoidable, or easily recovered from.

The kids? I can get stuff done whilst the oldest is at daycare, and the baby's napping. 

I've been sick a couple of times this month. This makes it hard to get lots of things done, but I can still do bits and pieces here or there. Clean out a drawer, list a couple of items on eBay, read one chapter for school, or even stick one load of washing on.

Focus is a hard one. I really struggle to focus and I am so easily distracted. I need to make sure I am well fed (with healthy food, and take regular breaks. If I'm really struggling then I could have a coffee for the extra brain power.

Space is limited. But this is why I have decided to take on this new lifestyle. I have now decided to stop trying to sell everything that is leaving our house. My original thought was that I could use this money to help pay off credit cards. Now I'm seeing just how time consuming this is, and it's also extremely frustrating. It means that everything is hanging around the house. I need to really do 1-2 trips to the salvos each week, to clear out the stuff and make a good amount of space.

Energy really is the same kind of road block as focus, with the same solutions.

I have a picture in my mind of what I really want our lives to look like. It may differ from my partner in some ways, but we both agree on a lot of things. We both like a clean house, but we hate cleaning. We both want more money to have awesome experiences and adventures with. We both want our kids to grow up with a good attitude towards money, gratitude and charity. 

Really I need to decide if the life we want is worth overcoming the road blocks.

An Overview of My Main Goals for a Simple Life

I have been eyeing off the minimalist lifestyle for quite some time now. It has always been a "yeah, right!" sort of idea that I never thought would be achievable. Don't get me wrong, we aren't a family of hoarders or anything. We keep a reasonably tidy house. We (try to) limit the amount of toys come into our house. We don't keep mountains of rubbish (unless you count my paperwork, but that's a very long story for a whole other day). But I still spend hours of my time cleaning our house. I still wade through paperwork on my way to bed each night. I still have bedding and computer items fall out of my linen cupboard when I open it.

We own too much stuff. And I have a little problem that I like to call consumer addiction. I will discuss this at a later time, but basically, I'm addicted to shopping. I love the buzz I get from new things. I love looking through the various emails that come through to my inbox with "once in a life time savings", I love looking through the catalogues I find in my letterbox every Tuesday.

What I do hate though, is seeing my bank account balance at the end of my shopping sprees. And I hate trying to find somewhere to put my fantastic new purchases.

So to start my journey to a simpler life I have a few loose goals to get me started. These are by no means SMART goals. I haven't (yet) broken them down into manageable chunks. These are just general goals to get me off in the right direction.

1. To get on top of my consumer addiction.
2. To clear our house of anything that we do not use, or we don't find beautiful.
3. To have less items in our house to clean and maintain.
4. To better our financial position by cutting back on shopping habits (this is greatly tied to goal #1).
5. To teach our children to live a life full of gratitude and helping others

My goals are unique to my family and our lives. I have 2 very young children (my youngest is just 4 months old) and our goals and views for our family are completely different from our next door neighbours, or the older couple across the road. 

The importance of minimalist living, is living the life that you and your family want to. It's about what minimalist living means to you.