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The Baby Steps to Minimalism
Being a minimalist isn't complicated. It means that you have chosen a life where you have less: less clutter, less distractions, less stress. This way of living simply allows you to rediscover who you are and where your passions lie. Minimalism can change your life.
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The 72 Hour List – A Lesson in Delayed Gratification
About a year and a half ago, my husband and I were in a spending rut. We always bought just a little too much and always bought it whenever we wanted it. Go out for ice cream? Sure! New sweater? Sure! We didn’t have any idea what it was like to have to wait for anything. In today’s consumer culture, instant gratification is the name of the game. It’s a treat-yo-self lifestyle in a world that is constantly pummeled with advertisements that reinforce that we need the best and we need it now. Why would big companies do such a thing? Well, there is this thing called your hard earned…
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The One Thing that Motivated Me to Get My ENTIRE House Organized
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the clutter in your home? Or maybe just the out of place but always there stuff? Everyone has that little pile of things they don’t know what to do with. The stuff is always somewhere just out of sight enough to ignore it. In our home, it seemed like everything we either didn’t know what to do with or didn’t want to deal with ended up on our kitchen counter in a corner. That stack o’ stuff kept getting bigger and bigger. I would dig through the pile to find an envelope that had something important in it… and then not put anything else…
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Hello Brownlow’s Top 5 Blog Posts
Holy crow – This is my 100th published post on Hello Brownlow! I’ve come so far from my Pinterest fail worthy DIYs and hodge-podge recipes to writing about my passions. Our frugal minimalism journey has become what I am passionate about. Living as a minimalist, and a frugal one at that, allows us to live a stress-free life. I’ve rounded up my top five posts of all time. What’s on deck? Loads of minimalism and saving money! It’s great to see the difference in results on my blog from my lack luster posts to the ones where I write with passion. Do I make money from my blog yet? Not…
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Why I Choose to Live a Minimalist Life
Minimalism seems so trendy right now. Everyone is talking about it. There is Tidying Up plus other shows and documentaries on Netflix that have people inspired to declutter their entire homes and get down to what they really love. I tend to think that a lot of folks that watch these shows and take action on them, feel a weight lifted from their shoulders. But who knows how many of those same people actually follow through with living with less stuff. Our minimalist life started in late July 2017. We had just watched The Minimalists’ documentary on Netflix. D and I thought to ourselves, why the heck do we have all this stuff? We had a rough first…
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28 Items to Declutter From Your Home This Weekend
There are things in our homes, mine included, that we shove into drawers and into the back of closets. We want to ignore them and pretend they don’t exist anymore. It’s the junk in the trunk of our cars and the junk of our drawers. It’s those “maybe it is actually broken?” items and items that no longer fit our lifestyles. It’s the items you can absolutely declutter and get rid of it today. Decluttering can be a therapeutic process. I’ve mentioned it before in my posts, but I’ll say it again. Less stuff overwhelming your home = less anxiety and less stress. You no longer have to find a…
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How to Shop Secondhand Like a Frugal Minimalist
There are many fantastic bargains to be found at the thrift stores this time of year. It makes the frugal heart happy. The post-Christmas purge has been done by many households, Marie Kondo has taken over Netflix, and spring cleaning is just around the corner. With the plethora of amazing frugal scores at thrift and secondhand stores, how do you not go overboard? How do you go about secondhand shopping like a frugal minimalist? Have in mind what you are looking for. Thrifting and secondhand shopping in general is always an adventure: you never know what you will find. That is what makes shopping this way exciting. The “unknown” part…
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The Best Two Reasons To Ditch Cable
In the late months of 2018, D and I thought about getting rid of our TV. That sounds crazy, right? Let’s toss the TV out the ol’ window shall we? Alas, it wasn’t that dramatic. It was a moment when we realized we would rather be outside than watching a screen for 24-75 minutes at a time. This is coming from a couple where Netflix was life during my first few months postpartum and during my I’m-too-nauseous-to-do-anything-because-I’m-really-pregnant days. Binge watching everything we could from Series of Unfortunate Events, to The Great British Baking Show, to Lost in Space (one of my favorites). We consumed TV for hours at a time. With Little Guy, my blog, seeing family, and traveling…
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How We Drastically Reduced Our Expenses to Live on One Income
Happy Tuesday everyone! Last month I wrote a guest post for a fellow blogging friend at My Way of Viewing. I posted it on my Facebook page but I’m not sure all of my new followers have seen it! In 2018, D and I decided it would be most advantageous for me to stay home with Little Guy while he continued to work full time. It took a lot of thought and preparation to do this. I made a list of how we reduce expenses so that I can stay home full time. I hope you enjoy it! Cut the Cable We cut the cable cord before it was cool…
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Planning for the Worst: Job Loss & Financial Security
What would happen if you lost your job tomorrow? Would you panic because you have nothing reserved in your bank accounts? Or would you stress a little and then relax because you’ve thought about this? In light of the recent government shutdown in the US that is creeping to the one month mark, it has us thinking about our financial security.Thousands of federal employees are not getting a paycheck and more are working… but not getting paid. D and I were at risk a few and almost lost our jobs. Working for the same company has its benefits and drawbacks. Both of the locations we worked at were on the…
Save. Live. Be Minimal.
