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How we downsize and declutter! | Full Time RV Life

How we downsize and declutter! | Full Time RV Life

How we downsize and declutter! | Full Time RV Life

Downsizing and decluttering is not something that stops once you move into an RV full time and hit the road. Even though you’ve cast off most of your possessions to fit your life into a tiny mobile living space, you’re still going to bring along a lot of things you don’t really need, and you’re going to pick up stuff you don’t need along the way. That’s why we still make an effort to downsize and declutter while living on the road. We found that when it becomes a part of your routine on the road, and off, it helps keep the wave of clutter from consuming you!

This is something we’ve certainly learned after being on the road. We’ve done multiple donation drop offs, passed belonging off to others that could use them, and sold some stuff on eBay. And we still have things we don’t really need. We decided to put together a little video of use going through and finding a few things we weren’t using and eliminating them.

After so many downsizing sessions, we’ve come up with a format we follow when going through our stuff.

First and foremost, remember “WHY?” you are doing this! Without a good reason, you’re not going to be able to push through the hardships of downsizing. So, it’s important to have that in place when you get started! For us, the reason was we wanted to move into a 200 square foot Airstream, because we wanted more freedom to travel by not being tied down to a location.

1. Start Small: Warm up your downsizing muscles by getting rid of the easy stuff. Have a pile of papers you haven’t recycled yet? Go through them and get rid of what you don’t need! Got something you’ve been meaning to fix, but haven’t been able to? Get rid of it if it can be replaced easily! Are you carrying around something because you imagine the perfect scenario for it to be used, but that scenario is super unlikely? Maybe it’s time to pass it on to someone else! Have a pair of pants you absolutely hate and haven’t worn in months? Someone else would live to find those at a thrift store!

2. Ask Your Partner: We can’t always see the value of something we own very clearly, so we tend to overvalue things and hang on to them. But chances our your partner has a list of items they don’t understand why you’re hanging on to. Ask them to identify these things! It might be painful, but it should at least move them to the forefront of your mind. Maybe you don’t get rid of them immediately, but now they’re in your sights for the next round of downsizing!

3. Go Digital When Possible: We had so many books and movies before we hit the road. Most of these had to go. And we have way few books now that when we started our travels. We’ve replaced them with our library and apps like Libby. But we still keep a few of our favorite books around for rereading when we feel like it.

4. Save Sentimental Items For Last: When we have a strong emotional tie to something, it’s really hard to let it go. It helps to have already purged some things before you take on the more challenging items. A lot of the time the attraction of the item is related to a person or experience. You have fond memories of this person, place, or time, and the item triggers those memories. But here’s the thing. The item itself is not the thing you are reminiscing…it was just part of it, and happens to still carry this value. As long as you have the memories, you don’t need that thing around anymore. You can throw it away or pass it on to someone else who could better use it!

This approach to downsizing has helped us get through countless piles of stuff over the last few years. Do you already have an approach to downsizing that works for you? Let us know in the comments below!!!

Check out our interview with Aimee here – http://tincancreative.co/downsizing-with-aimee-olsen/

Learn more about Aimee, or reach out to her:
Instagram – @lifedonesimply
Website – lifedonesimply.com
Email – aimee@lifedonesimply.com

Downsizing: An Interview with Aimee Olsen of Life Done Simply

Downsizing: An Interview with Aimee Olsen of Life Done Simply

Downsizing: An interview with Aimee Olsen

One of the biggest challenges we faced before hitting the road was downsizing our lives and possessions to fit into a 180 square foot Airstream. We read stuff from Marie Kondo, The Minimalists, and many others to help us in our purge. Even with all this advice, we still found the task to be very daunting. That’s why we’re putting together a downsizing series of videos.

For the first video in our downsizing series, we interview Aimee Olsen. Aimee is an organization expert who also happens to live on the road full time with her partner, Ben, and golden retriever, Selby. She understands first hand what it’s like to whittle down her life to fit into an RV. Plus, she has helped many of her clients declutter their homes and work towards a more organized life.

We hope her wisdom helps you frame your own goal of decluttering and sets you on a path to success!!

Learn more about Aimee, or reach out to her:
Instagram – @lifedonesimply
Website – lifedonesimply.com
Email – aimee@lifedonesimply.com

Follow Aimee and Ben’s RV adventures here – @theroamsteaders

Learn about how we downsize and declutter on the road – http://tincancreative.co/how-we-downsize-and-declutter/

Do you have questions about downsizing? Let us know in the comments below!

Letting go of the stuff that’s holding you back

Letting go of the stuff that’s holding you back

Letting go of the stuff that's holding you back

Letting go is hard.

A dear friend told me the other day how she tried ziplining with her kids for the first time. Not being very keen on heights, she let her kids go first, and when it came time for her turn, she paused. She was frozen. Fear had set in. After a few minutes (and asking the zip line worker how she’d get down if she didn’t want to go through with it) she decided to let go.

As she told me the story, I could see how glad and proud she was to have let go. For her, the literal “letting go” felt metaphorical. She had gone through a rough divorce in recent years and is now a single mom with three kids. Her choice to let go allowed her to experience something new instead of keeping herself trapped in the past.

Letting go can be extraordinarily difficult for all of us.

For Jay and I, moving from a 1,100 sq foot house to a 180 sq foot trailer means we have a lot of physical stuff we have to let go of. Even things we thought we’d never get rid of!

Take for instance this now broken Djembe. I brought it back from West Africa 10 years ago and it took an entire sleeping bag, a lot of duct tape and some light arguing with the border agent to get it into the US.

If I kept the drum, it would need to be fixed and I knew I wouldn’t really play it enough to make it worth it. I was holding onto it for sentimental reasons. After I re-evaluated the weight and space it had in my life, I realized that it was the experience and the joy I had when I played it that mattered. It’s time for me to let go, and let someone else find joy in it.

Letting go physical things can be pretty challenging, but truthfully, it’s the emotional things that have been the hardest to let go.

For Jay and I, it’s the fear and sadness we feel when thinking about leaving our family and friends here in the Northeast. We know these feelings are natural, and we mustn’t dwell on them or let them consume us because:

1. Our friends and family are only a phone call away and it’s up to us to make an effort
2. Social media can help us share/receive updates
3. We can return to the Northeast anytime and literally park ourselves in our family/friend’s driveways and bother them for an entire month (or as long as they can tolerate us!)
4. Like my friend I mentioned earlier, letting go will allow us to experience something new. We want to pursue this lifestyle for reasons explained here. And if we hold ourselves back, we’ll never know what could have been.

What are you struggling to let go of?

We’re all human. We all struggle to let go. So what’s holding you back? Is it fear, anger or resentment? Is it physical stuff?  Whatever it is, ask yourself why it’s hard to let go and try to imagine what would happen if you did. If you’re willing to share, tell us in the comments below!

Minimize Spending – Building Tools

Minimize Spending – Building Tools

It’s been a while since we rode our bikes, far too long. We got a text from some friends letting us know they were taking advantage of the decent weather (28 and cloudy) to go for a little spin around town. We eagerly decided to join them.

While I was airing up the tires I remembered the crank arm came loose the last time I rode the bike (over a month ago). I had to wedge a rock in the 16mm hex bolt to tighten it so I could finish the ride.  In the time since then, it did not happen to “heal” on its own. It was still loose and needed to be tightened….our ride was in jeopardy.

A 16mm hex or “allen” key is not a common thing. I called all the local bike shops, no luck. Their tone seemed to be suspicious of my need for such a tool, as if there is no way to fit a bolt this size on a bicycle. So then I reached out to local garages, surprisingly no one had one. How about an auto parts store? No.

We ended up heading to a “box” home improvement store. The largest hex key they had was 12mm. Feeling pretty bummed out, we headed over to the hardware section to find things to cobble together. After a lot of trial and error, and eventually needing to take the bolt into the store, we were able to fit the head of another large bolt into the 16mm space. By threading a nut onto this new bolt, and using a crescent wrench, we could easily torque the crank arm back on. Not bad for $2.22.

Money was spent, but it wasn’t very much…and now we have a tool to fix this if it happens again. More importantly, we got out and did a great ride with friends on a fair winter day.

Minimize Spending – Medical Emergencies

Minimize Spending – Medical Emergencies

In a feat of culinary stupidity, I stood a loaf of bread on end in order to cut it. Piercing its crust required similar effort as, I imagine, cutting into an armadillo would. As I pressed the knife downward, the precariously balanced bread tipped sideways and the knife slid along its armored crust and traveled into my left pointer finger leaving a laceration from the center of my finger nail around the outer side above the top most joint. I could feel the serration of the bread knife glance across my bone…bump, bump, bump. Staring at the open wound my first thoughts were “I need stitches”, “shit, this is going to cost money” and “this is going to put a damper on climbing and guitar playing this month”.

I quickly cleaned it and sealed it up with gauze and tape. Then I started thinking of how to fix this. It was 6 pm on New Year’s Day. The emergency clinics had closed. There was the ER, but that can get pricey and is usually a pretty depressing experience. I decided to call my friend Adam who worked at the hospital. He was able to give me some advice over the phone and offered to swing by to take a look at it. In the meantime, I removed the bandages to clean it more thoroughly. My eyes had overestimated the size of it in my panic earlier. It was only about 1/2″, but still pretty deep. Maybe I could go without the stitches. When Adam came over, he made the same assessment. Using some steri-strips, gauze, and tape I had around the house, we were able to patch it up just fine.

I’m not trying to tell you to avoid going to the hospital in case of an emergency. If you are hurt and bleeding, by all means, go out and get help. I’m advocating that you take a look at a situation and figure out what means you have available to you. In this case, I had a friend with the right skills, and we had all we needed around the house to come up with a solution. So, I guess the lesson is: Keep a first aid kit on hand and know who you have in your corner.

Minimize Spending – Mission Statement

Minimize Spending – Mission Statement

Over the last year, I have gotten swept up in this minimalist movement that’s popularized by The Minimalists, Joshua Becker, and to a degree by Leo Babauta (though he has more of a focus on mindfulness). This has greatly reduced the amount of crap I own and also made me appreciate the things I have decided to keep around. It’s also made me very wary and critical of any new purchases or freebie items that cross my path…though I’ll save that for another post.

This post is focussed on another area related to minimalism. That is a reduction in spending, particularly unnecessary spending…which I excel at. At one point I owned 12 bicycles…which maybe should have a post of its own. On the more extreme end of the spectrum, I’ve seen a lot of folks doing “no spend” challenges. They choose a budget to use for necessary things like groceries and housing but cut out things like coffee shops, eating out, and buying things. Right now this is very appealing to me. December was a month of excess. There was much gifting…so much gifting. I bought myself some new climbing shoes, which took me weeks to pull the trigger on. And I also bought a new guitar…on impulse, I saw it, decided it was perfect and I wouldn’t be sick of it in 5 years and that 1/3 off retail would be a hard deal to come by again, so I just bought it. This behavior is just silly. Oh, I should also add that we got a new vehicle this fall.

Needless to say, it’s time to cut back on this excessiveness. Jess, my fiance, and I both plan on doing a variant of the “no spend” challenge this month. I can’t speak for her level of asceticism in this effort, but I can go into what I am going to do.

  • No eating out or going to coffee shops, make stuff at home.
  • No buying alcohol (we have a bunch on hand)
  • No buying new things (clothing, photo gear, bike stuff, etc.)
  • Minimize driving and spend on transportation, walk or bike to work
  • We can buy groceries and dog food.
  • We have to cover our mortgage, insurance, bills, etc.
  • We are allowing ourselves to buy season passes for the Cornell climbing wall. This contributes to our health, well-being, and gives us something to do with our friends vs going out to bars. Also, it’s an experience, not a thing.
  • We had to purchase tickets to a mountain bike festival in May. The reasoning for this can be cited above, and it sells out super fast….again, an experience is a justifiable spend to us.

The goal of this ordeal is to look more closely at how we spend our money and move towards saving and using it more mindfully.

I plan on creating some more posts on how this is going. In theses posts, I would like to include a confessional about the kinds of stuff I consider buying, and how I justify it, and also document any slip ups I have. A good example of this was last night, I gave serious thought to buying a $400 record player. We haven’t played record in a year, but last night we had some guests over. I told myself that the preamp in our existing player was a bit weak and resulted in a flat frequency curve when played through our stereo (it’s true). I was prepared to throw away $400 dollars to have another thing around that would get occasional use. Then I’d have to find a way to ditch the old player, sell it on eBay or give it away, which is a decent amount of work in itself. That money could have been spent on travel, food, gifts, investments, or just something we would use every day.

Ok, let’s see how this goes…