Saturday morning coffee on Sunday. We were traveling home yesterday morning from visiting our kids and watching a hockey game in Grand Rapids on Friday. We decided with a bad weather forecast to just get home and prepare for the storm. I am always so shocked how fast 4 days off from work can go on a holiday weekend and here we are on Sunday. Last day before returning to the grind.

I must say the beauty of working on having a minimalist mindset over the past couple of years is that I did not feel compelled to do any Black Friday shopping. In fact, I only have a couple of ideas of gifts for people, so far. I was tempted with an online sale for craft supplies with the 10,000 emails I received for Black Friday. I didn’t complete the order. I decided that most of us have way too much stuff. I have way too much stuff, hence my obsession with Clutterbug, Marie Kondo, Flylady and Gretchen Rubin.

I have been thinking about how to not overwhelm people at Christmas with more stuff. Maybe they are working on a minimalist mindset. Or maybe they are like me and have too much.

I want you to understand something. I am not a minimalist and don’t want to be a hard core one. I just want to have the mindset of one. I have lots of stuff. Way too much. I am also the keeper of lot of stuff I don’t feel like I can be rid of either. Things that are “family pieces”. Grandmas dishes, furniture and wedding gits. My adult kids legacy of Christmas past that fill many boxes in closets. I am working on making the stuff store in a smaller footprint in my home. I am also getting rid of things that are rotten/broken and moving some things on. It’s hard because those things don’t feel like they belong to me. I am their keeper. Or are they keeping me?

I also realized after much introspection this weekend, plus reading some internet articles and just plain observing….. many of us have a ton of things out of the abundance of modern living. Even when I was living in poverty many years ago, we didn’t lack for things. In the 1980’s there were Thrift shops, yard sales and Walmart. Now with internet, shopping with tons of things being low priced, you can get what ever you want, when ever you want. I just replaced my very expensive Keurig coffee pot with a $20 single k cup pot at Walmart! Even at my poorest, I have had this struggle of purging my house from items I no longer needed and didn’t want to store or be the keeper of those items. Getting rid of stuff is expensive and I don’t really want to fill the landfills with excessive amounts of things that I don’t really need!

I think that what I am trying to say is that I feel free from the need to shop and buy things impulsively. I think maybe that is the beginning of getting the mindset of a minimalist. I purchase what I want, when I need it and try not to set myself up for impulse purchases. I don’t find myself wandering stores looking for bargains and purchasing them just because they are a good deal. It isn’t a deal if I don’t really need it. And I sure don’t want it to end up in a landfill somewhere. I can find entertainment in other more effective ways.

That’s why I am spending out on experiences like the hockey game and a lovely dinner. Are you having any of these types of thoughts as we enter the holiday season?

Vicki