Simple Living Hacks We Tried (And Failed At or Gave Up On)

The simple living hacks that never stuck or we failed at.

Back when simple living / minimalism was more of a ‘guy in his 20s living out of a backpack’ lifestyle in the blogging world, there was a lot of talk about simple living hacks.

Like, I just use one pot and a frying pan to cook and gave away the rest of my pots and pans. Or I only have one pair of jeans and I will wear them everyday until they wear out (this has unintentionally been me). Or even, from one of my favourite minimalists, we don’t have a couch. It was extreme and from the sidelines I was often inspired. Inspired but then trying to figure out how to adapt the challenge to my life.

Reading about these digital nomads who only lived with 88 thing was the genesis of this blog and my fire to reduce our stuff. Sure, I wasn’t up for living out of a backpack or a micro-apartment with my family, but there was so much I could take from their extremes. Like the power of having fewer material things to take care of. Or the beauty and freedom found in not wanting more and better stuff all the time. That’s really what this space has always come back to year after year after year.

Having less stuff and the simple living movement can be for anyone and everyone.

I started this blog eight years ago. I had no idea when I hit publish with that first post that I would be writing about how to live with less for another eight years. Or that I would publish three books on the subject. Or that the pursuit of minimalism would change my life in many big and small ways.

Many of those big and small ways that simple living changed me are what I am sharing today. And they were not all a success or things I continued with. We’ve moved in and out of simple living hacks as life has changed with moves and kids. I thought it would be fun to reach back to a few things we tried in the past and that either didn’t stick or didn’t work for us down the road. I also wanted to share the things that we have stuck with – things that felt really hard in the beginning but are now just part of our everyday.

No Laundry baskets: guys, this really worked as a family of three. But add on a few more kids and we hit a tipping point. Our laundry system as a family of five currently involves one family laundry basket in the main bathroom and an IKEA big blue bag. We have a stacked washer dryer in a closet between our master bedroom and the kids bedroom. My husband and I throw on laundry often. We pile clean clothing into the big blue IKEA bag and when it’s full one of us puts the laundry away. So we have a laundry basket now. But so far, it’s just the one.

Line drying clothing: we did three years of hanging all of our clothing indoors and on racks to dry when we lived in the UK. That included cloth diapers. It was a lot of work and at first I liked the challenge. Then we moved to a townhouse that had a dryer right before our third baby arrived. And, wow, I slipped right back into my North American energy hog ways!

I would love to line dry outside now that we live in a house. Unfortunately some of our family have heinous seasonal allergies and drying pollen into our clothing seems unwise. Plus, I’ll just admit I’m in a season of wanting easier housework. Maybe when the kids are doing all the laundry we will go to line drying.

Car Free: back and forth, back and forth. Since getting into minimalism back in our ‘we need to pay off a lot of debt’ days we have had multiple stints of not having a car. I loved not having a car. It felt like freedom. Freedom that you acquire from a crazy high walk score or being really stubborn. Moving to a small town necessitated a car and I am thankful for having a reliable vehicle up here. I could see us moving to a bigger city when the kids are older/have left the nest and there would be a good chance my husband and I would be car free again.

Simple living hacks that I have kept up for many years.

Tracking Finances: I first started tracking my spending and household bills in early 2011. It stunned me. Stunned me in a good way. We had just dipped our toes into minimalism and I quickly saw that with reduced spending and selling stuff, we were getting some traction on our debt. It was really powerful to see that debt number go down.

I was motivated and soon my husband was motivated too. He hopped on to tracking spending and creating a household budget in mid-2011 when we moved overseas. Seven years later and we still track all of our finances. We have moved through a few different tracking and budgeting apps and are currently using Mint. We’ve also used You Need a Budget which I highly recommend for people first starting out with budgeting. Tracking finances is a simple living tip that I hope is with me for life.

Smaller wardrobes: I don’t usually feel like a minimalist. We have stuff in our house. It’s not bare. I really only notice we don’t have as many things as most families when I visit other people’s homes. That’s when it hits me that the kid’s have less stuff and so do my husband I. And these are not the homes of hoarders, just regular families. Our garage and basement are not full of things and there is a lot of empty shelving in those spaces. In North America this is unusual.

There’s one place I feel a bit too minimalist in. I frequently feel I’m on the edge of extreme minimalism with our wardrobes. This is particularly noticeable in the summer when the kids might go through a few changes of clothing in the day (sprinklers!). Plus clothing usually can’t be worn a second day because they’ve been playing in dirt. All good things but what’s a minimalist mom to do when her kids only own five pairs of shorts and those shorts are all dirty within two days of being washed? I relented and got the kids a few extra pairs of shorts this summer. But overall I think having smaller wardrobes has been really helpful for our family. It’s easier to keep track of things, we only need one dresser in the boy’s shared bedroom and we spend less on clothing.

A Simpler Kitchen: I would own so many serving platters if I wasn’t into minimalism. I love kitchen stuff. All of it: gadgets, nice pots and pans, La Creuset Dutch Ovens, pizza stones, wine glasses.

Budget, minimalism and always having smaller kitchens has kept me in check over the years on collecting kitchen stuff. Our current kitchen has poor storage – corner cabinets, deep lower shelving that is hard to access – and that has helped keep me in check on my kitchen stuff as we moved from an apartment to a house. I also justify keeping things by using them like my wedding china.

Meal Planning: this one is still with me and guys, it works. Meal planning saves me a lot of time, stress and money. I sit down on the weekend, look at the grocery store flyer, check what we have in the fridge and pantry, and then plan meals for the week and a grocery list. At one point when we were eating a specific diet, I had a spreadsheet of weekly meals that I rotated through. Add in online grocery shopping with delivery and everything was streamlined.

You don’t have to master, or even stick with, every minimalist lifestyle change you try.

It’s part of the fun and learning, right? Car-free doesn’t work for everyone and it may not work forever for you. Same with living in smaller spaces. Minimalism and the pursuit of it can teach us to be more flexible and to have fewer expectations around stuff. I think developing this flexible attitude makes it easier to identify things you need, or don’t need, and take quick action with them. As in, we’re moving to a land locked city and I don’t want to pay for storage, so I’ll sell my SUP board. I haven’t worn that sweater in years, it’s time to let it go.

A flexible attitude also lends itself to feeling less attached to stuff. Being less attached to stuff can help you get off the consumer bandwagon of constantly buying things and upgrading.