Author: Justin @ LivingTheFIghLife

Guarding The Gate: How I Stay a Minimalist

Becoming a minimalist takes a lot of introspection. Identifying what you value the very most and letting go of the rest is hard work. Asking yourself tough questions to separate the objects you own from the emotions, marketing pressures, perceived value, and other forces that drive what we buy and own. Likewise, I’ve found that staying a minimalist doesn’t happen on its own––I have to stay focused on my values to avoid falling back into the collect-purge cycle. 

For decades I spent countless hours each year organizing, culling, and disposing of (selling in a garage sale or donating) loads of excess stuff that had accumulated since the last purge. Then I’d rinse and repeat the following year. My master organizing or annual spring cleaning efforts didn’t make me a minimalist, but changing my relationship with stuff did. I became a minimalist in March of 2022––about 15 months before my wife and I downsized 98% of our physical possessions and became full-time nomads.

But how do we maintain our newfound freedom? By setting up systems and methods to prevent new items from re-filling the spaces we have worked so hard to empty. Here are my strategies for how I remain a minimalist and guard my metaphorical “front gate” preventing unwanted stuff from creeping back into my life.

I stopped shopping. 

Shopping as entertainment is no longer a part of my life. Sure, I still buy an item like a shirt or shoes when I need to, but I don’t browse just to see what savvy marketers are trying to get me to buy. Instead I read, visit museums, enjoy lengthy nature walks, and lots more. There is so much to do and see without needing to go into a mall, big box store, or antique shop for entertainment. As I travel full-time, I am constantly confronted with shopping opportunities. So many museums, amusement rides, and other tourist sites channel me into their gift shops in hopes I will leave with some trinkets, whether lovely hand-crafted local items or lower-quality items imported from elsewhere. I am barraged at airports, along the streets of quaint downtowns, and sometimes on trains and buses. When a market of locally produced crafts is integrated into a historic street or festival (which is frequent), I stroll, hands behind my back, and admire their handy work––but I keep moving, looking for the food or drink stalls with a delicious local flavor to enjoy instead. Grilled corn is a favorite of mine. As I encounter the various shopping situations around the world, I remind myself of my values and buy only things that support them closely. My souvenirs are my photos and memories made, which are easily portable and I can enjoy their dividends anywhere, again and again.

I buy consumables instead of trinkets — enjoying Mexican corn in Mazatlan

I shared my minimalist values with family, friends and co-workers. 

Gift giving is ingrained in our society. I enjoy giving gifts, so I can’t expect my friends and family to refrain from giving me gifts. I do politely let relatives and friends know I value experiences (eating out, visiting a museum, and travel) and consumables (homemade cookies or a bottle of craft gin) over physical possessions. I let them know about my efforts to downsize and that I value having less physical things in my life. If asked what I would like for my birthday or Christmas I no longer give the modest “oh, you don’t have to give me anything” non-answer. Instead, I help them by giving options: a gift card to a favorite restaurant, tickets to a museum, concert or sporting event, their famous pineapple upside down cake, or even something physical that I truly do need at that moment like a replacement shirt. I also model my values by giving gifts that are experiences and consumables unless I know exactly what physical object they need. While I have received a couple of gifts over the last few years where I needed to find them a new home, overall my family and friends have been gracious in recognizing and supporting my minimalist values with their gift giving. 

I’m armed with responses to help turn down unwanted gifts. 

As my wife and I travel, well meaning people offer us gifts. Our hiking guide to the top of Mount Fansipan surprised us with commemorative medals for completing the tough hike to the top of Vietnam’s highest peak. We thanked him profusely for carrying them up the mountain on our behalf, took a picture with them, and then politely returned the medals letting him know that “We travel light,” and “Sorry, we have very small suitcases,” and asking if the still-new medals could be given to other hikers. He totally understood and returned them to his backpack for the next hikers he guided up the mountain. In addition to a persistent “no thank you,” these simple phrases have helped us avoid most offered gifts. Giving a simple reason for why I am unable to accept an unwanted gift often helps the gift-giver accept my choice to pass on the gift. 

We returned the medals to our guide so they could be given to other hikers who may wish to have them.

I don’t let unwanted objects enter my daily routine.

For gifts of physical objects that I can’t dissuade someone from giving, I quickly find a new home for them and don’t let them become a part of my life. Just because someone gave me something does not mean I have to imbue it with emotion and sentiment. Their love for me, and mine for them, are separate from the gift itself. It is the thought that counts, not the physical object. For Christmas last year I was given a ball cap with one of my favorite college team’s logo on it. I enjoy watching that team play, but I don’t wear ball caps. But a close friend who loves that team and wears ball caps was happy to have it. 

I’m wary of accepting gift bags or other “freebies.” While free stuff often feels like getting value and speaks to that inner poor college student in me, it usually doesn’t align with my top values and can quickly take up valuable space in my life. Freebies are never truly free as every object we own comes with an IOU of effort to organize, clean, and eventually dispose of it. At a recent personal finance conference I attended, I let them know in advance that I didn’t need the conference T-shirt even though it was included in the registration. Even though it was a fun T-shirt for an organization I support, I just didn’t need it. We can turn down freebies and not allow them to re-clutter our lives.  

This applies to things we buy that for one reason or another don’t work as well as we thought. Finding the right clothes for full-time travel took some calibrating. For example, I replaced two cotton shirts (my long-time preference) with quick-dry synthetic shirts that I thought would travel better. But I quickly learned that merino wool shirts were the best travel clothes for me. So instead of letting the two nearly new synthetic shirts take up space in my suitcase or storage, I donated them. I saved space, both physical and mental, and let someone else find value in them.

This wallet I bought in Sa Pa, Vietnam replaced my worn out wallet my daughter gave me in 2016.

I recognize marketing strategies and resist them.

Don’t “collect all five!” And a diamond bracelet isn’t actually the only way to express devotion to a significant other. We are barraged by clever and powerful marketing tactics designed to make us feel like we have to own a product to be part of the crowd, feel complete, or avoid missing out. Recognizing these forces can help us build our immunity to them. When dumped into a gift shop after visiting a tourist attraction, I remind myself that this is by design, and that I am not obligated to look at their wares let alone buy anything. I don’t linger, I head for the exit as planned, and I enjoy the next part of my day.

This goes for online marking strategies, too. Minimizing our exposure to ads will help us resist buying stuff we don’t need. I recommend using an ad blocker on your browser. When Google stopped supporting the uBlock Origin extension, I switched to Firefox (which offers more privacy anyway). I switched from Google search to DuckDuckGo and I get a lot less ads. I also use a VPN with an ad blocker. Bottom line––using ad blockers really helps!

Guarding the gate requires some vigilance. But having systems in place to reduce exposure to our buy-buy-buy culture, declining gifts or steering potential gift givers toward what you value most, and not letting unwanted new items enter our daily routine can avoid the life-consuming collect-purge cycle and support a life of contentment. With some proactive strategies, we can maintain and continue to reap the life-changing benefits of the minimalist life. 

At the nightly street market in Luang Prabang. I spent my money at the food stalls.

Understanding Your Personal Inflation Rate

Thinking about inflation? Me, too. With recent increases in government tariffs on foreign goods, the specter of higher inflation has increased, and the potential impact on your expenses may be a worry. But the impacts of inflation are not always bad—or as bad as we may think. Inflation is demonized because we tend to notice higher prices for gas or groceries on a regular basis, but we tend not to notice when prices stay neutral or go down, or when our income goes up.

When it comes to personal finance, inflation is an unavoidable economic reality. Time passes, prices rise and the purchasing power of your dollar goes down, right? Well, yes and no. Truly understanding the impact of inflation on your future requires a closer look. It can be tempting to write off high inflation rates as something you can’t control, but refining your understanding of inflation in general and your personal inflation rate in particular can help you make better financial decisions.

Inflation doesn’t necessarily mean we will suffer a loss of buying power. We all have our own inflation rate. If the overall US inflation rate increases from its target of 2 percent to, say, 7 percent, your personal inflation rate could be significantly lower than the national numbers. We can influence how inflation affects us personally by how we manage our money.

Before we take a closer look—what is inflation?

More than simply an increase in prices, inflation is an overall price level increase for, generally, all goods and services in the economy. The government tracks inflation through its Consumer Price Index (CPI) which measures the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. On average, the Federal Reserve aims for an inflation rate of 2% per year for long-term price stability and maximum employment. Just as overly high rates of inflation can strain consumers, a too low inflation rate can cause interest rates to decline and make it more difficult to recover from an economic downturn.

Inflation can be good, bad, or neutral for your wallet.

We are most familiar with the “bad” side of inflation. Prices on healthcare and education, for example, have increased faster than the median income over the last couple of decades. After the pandemic, many companies took advantage of temporary inflationary pressures such as delays in supply chains and pent-up consumer demand (coupled with increased savings) to dramatically increase prices (or reduce product sizes—referred to as “shrinkflation”), and their profits. But even when inflation is low, if we keep significant money under the mattress or in a low (below inflation) interest-bearing checking account, we will lose buying power over time.

Shrinkflation can be maddening! (Photo Credit: Retail Dogma)

If rising inflation rates have you concerned about the value of your money, considering the “good” side of inflation can help. In fact, there are some cases in which inflation can actually increase your buying power.

Owning real estate with a low fixed-rate mortgage (which many Americans took advantage of when interest rates were historically low) provides an example of the good side of inflation for our finances. My wife and I purchased a home in 2012 with a 3.25% fixed rate mortgage. While my taxes and insurance have increased since then (mostly because my home value increased) my principal and interest—the majority of the mortgage payment—stayed exactly the same. Over the past 13 years, my monthly payment increased by an average of just 1.08% per year—way below the housing inflation rate over that same period. Even with increased maintenance costs and utility price increases, my overall housing costs were well below the published inflation rate.

We can also benefit from rising house prices (aka housing inflation). We own a fraction of our  houses while we’re paying off the mortgage, but we keep all increases in home value when we sell them. For example, if I put 20% down ($100K) on a $500K home, and the home increases in value by 4% during the year, then my investment increases—not just by $4K (4% of the $100K down payment), but by $20K (4% of the full value of the house at $500K). This compounds year after year, so a 4% increase the following year would be on $520K, and so on.  

Incomes tend to rise over time, due in large part to inflation.

While my mortgage payment grew slowly, my income greatly increased from inflationary pressures. Most years as a government employee, I received a cost of living pay increase and often a merit-based pay increase and/or promotion. Similarly, my wife’s teacher salary increased significantly over the same period. My monthly military pension used to be a couple hundred dollars more than my monthly mortgage payments in 2012, but in 2025 it is a couple thousand more each month thanks to compounding cost-of-living adjustments to offset inflation. My buying power has increased because my income has increased far beyond my routine expenses for food, housing, and transportation.

But what about retirees who are on a fixed income?

Social Security and most pensions, as well as real estate and income from smart investments (e.g., low-cost broad-based index funds) are inflation adjusted, meaning their buying power remains steady despite inflation. As prices rise, so do these income sources. In 2022, Social Security was increased by 8.7%, equal to the government’s calculated inflation rate. So, while there is a slight lag, Social Security keeps pace with inflation. The same is true for most pensions. 

Similarly, if you have real estate rental income, the monthly rent is increased to keep pace with housing inflation and, since the principal and interest of the mortgage is fixed, this income can exceed your increases in rental expenses over the same period of time.

Over time, average returns on investments such as stocks and bonds tend to outpace inflation and can give us more buying power, not less. If we follow best practices for investing and take annual safe withdrawals from investments that are inflation adjusted each year, then our investment income in retirement will keep up with inflation.  

My Personal Inflation Rate—Some Examples

By understanding the components of governmental inflation rate calculations, we can identify how our personal inflation rate differs—in my case, my personal inflation rate is usually lower, while my income is usually higher.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) calculates the CPI annually. It determines spending categories (housing, transportation, food, etc.), weighs those categories based on what the average American spends in each, and finally identifies inflation in each category (see BLS CPI weighting chart).

In 2023, increased housing expenses across the nation represented 44.6% of that year’s inflation rate of 4.1%. Housing is usually a household’s biggest expense, but if we have a low fixed-rate mortgage, our housing costs are likely to rise slower than for people who rent. Why? Because the CPI is calculated using average rent increases for renters and “imputed rent” (an estimate of what one would pay to rent the house they own) for home owners. Imputed rent is calculated using actual rents of comparable homes in the area. So, the housing inflation rate is fundamentally based on increases in rents. 

Thanks to the fixed portion of mortgages (principal and interest), housing inflation for homeowners tends to be lower than that of renters over time. For example, my housing cost (mortgage plus maintenance) increased by 2.42% from 2021 to 2022, but average rent prices increased by about 6% nationwide in the same time period. That means that my personal inflation rate for housing was less than half of the national rate.

Each person spends differently than the “average” person. For example, if you don’t have any education expenses in the last year, then your weight would be zero in that category. But even if you do, some institutions offer tuition guarantees, which lock in your tuition costs for every year of attendance. Choosing a college or university with a tuition guarantee is one way to neutralize the impact of inflation on our education spending. Both our now grown children went to universities with tuition guarantees, eliminating the impact of ongoing inflation in the education category from our personal inflation rate.

In the healthcare category, a personal inflation rate can vary greatly from the average in the CPI. For example, my wife and I  have military and veterans’ healthcare benefits, so we spend a lot less than the average American on healthcare. Our insurance premiums are lower as are our out-of-pocket medical expenses. As a result, inflation in the healthcare category is weighted a lot lower for us (2.5%) than the 7.8% for the average American. Once again, our personal inflation rate is different from the national numbers. 

In addition, my wife and I embraced minimalism. We no longer buy as many goods such as apparel or decor as many Americans. We avoid upgrades of our cell phones and electronics, and we don’t drive cars as much. In fact, we have been car-free for the last two years as full-time nomads. (But even when we did have cars, our transportation represented 4% of our budget, not the 17.2% used by the CPI.) These minimalist choices made big differences in our personal inflation rate across many categories. 

While the examples from my life may not be practical for every financial situation or lifestyle, they illustrate how accounting for inflation is more than just budgeting extra for groceries each year. When we focus on what we value most and let the rest go, we also have a hedge against many of inflation’s “bad” effects. By living an unconventional life and controlling expenses, often buying less expensive alternatives, we have gained a lot of control over our personal inflation rate. 

Perhaps best of all, we don’t have to panic when we hear the latest scary national inflation rate in the news, because we’ve thought through our personal inflation rate, and we know the difference.   

Inflation is a fact of life, but it doesn’t have to derail your financial journey. In some cases, it could even be a help.

Post cover photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Six Myths of Financial Independence and Early Retirement

Since my early retirement in 2020, I have noticed several misunderstandings about pursuing financial independence (FI) and retiring early that are frequently perpetuated by FI content creators and their guests. Here are six common myths regarding pursuing full FI and early retirement. While some of these might be true for some individuals or in very specific cases, they become myths when touted as general truths. It is time to debunk several:

1. I have to keep working because I couldn’t just sit on the beach (or couch) all day.

This work or do-nothing binary has got to go! It is frequently used to justify continuing to work when someone is fully financially independent and doesn’t need the money. The truth is––a life without paid work can be equally, if not more, fulfilling. I’m a proud early retiree and I rarely spend time on the beach sipping fruity drinks or sitting on my couch eating Cheetos. My life is well-balanced with full-time travel, quality time with friends and family, getting plenty of sleep and taking care of my health, hiking, reading, and learning––all with white space to breathe and just be. It has led to a life of contentment I never had when working 40-50 hours per week, to include when I worked my dream job. There are thousands of interesting hobbies to pursue that make for a happy and contented life. By not working, my time is mine to control and I love it! 

2. I don’t want to pursue full financial independence with the ability to retire early, as I don’t want to live a life of deprivation or unhappiness to get there.

Frugality is the superpower of FI. Cutting back on spending does not mean that we have to live a life of deprivation or unhappiness––just the opposite. You don’t have to eat only beans and rice, sleep on a friend’s couch, or some other extreme deprivation. My favorite cutbacks enable me to save money while still enjoying the same or close-to-the-same goods or services. These are the “invisible” cutbacks––those that are not noticeable or barely noticeable with a little intentionality (Brad Barret, host of the ChooseFI podcast, frequently echoes this sentiment). I have found that happiness is usually found in time spent with family and friends, time in nature, and learning––most of which can be done without spending a lot of money. As modern-day philosopher Naval Ravikant explains, “Money doesn’t buy happiness – it buys freedom.”

3. Renting is financially better than buying.

For a short term, this is generally true, but for a long-term (~7+ years) buying a comparable home on a fixed rate mortgage and renting it to yourself is usually the better financial decision. This is primarily due to the power of inflation. Over time rents increase at a far higher rate than home mortgage payments and maintenance costs combined. In addition, the owner gets to keep all of the home’s valuation growth despite only owning a fraction of the home. You can find a detailed financial analysis with spreadsheets in this rent vs buy post. When making a rent vs buy decision, run the numbers over at least 10 years. Financial advisors rarely advise investing in the stock market for less than a 10-year horizon. Likewise, we should not invest in buying a house unless we achieve a better result than if we rented. If you can’t do that, rent.

4. You must know what you will do with a specific plan for retirement before you retire or you’ll find yourself with nothing going on and you’ll get depressed. 

Spending time before retirement when I was physically and mentally exhausted working long-hours at my job and fitting in my every-day life chores around that, was not the right time to try out new hobbies or make new retirement friends. Forcing a new hobby into my already busy life, particularly one that would benefit from daytime hours and my full energy, would have added to my burnout and risk me resenting the new endeavor that I might otherwise enjoy. It is completely OK to not know what you want to do in retirement. Leaving work frees up an enormous amount of time and mental energy to explore and try out new things and meet new people. When I retired, I went to graduate school to study history for a year, then I pursued personal financial consulting, then I worked my dream job but quit after a year to travel full time (and this will eventually change again). I learned an enormous amount about myself after retirement because I had the time and resources to do so. I became a minimalist that changed who I am, started writing, and improved my Spanish. The key is that we don’t have to have it all figured out in advance. Protect what little white space you have in your life when you are working and know that retirement will provide ample time to decide what to do next.

5. Pursuing full FI and early retirement is a race.

It’s not, but I’m surprised at how often I hear it implied. Reaching FI actually takes time and is achieved at your own pace. Even with an impressive 44% savings rate it should take about 20 years. My wife and I, due mostly to poor investing, took 30 years after college to reach FI and we retired 15 years early. If you take longer or shorter it is OK. It is your journey based on your life. It is not a race with anyone as achieving FI is often dependent on how much you make in your chosen field of work and your life’s particular situation. While some may be happy spending their free time working side-hustles to earn more money, I didn’t, and you don’t have to either. Follow your own path. It took 19 years before my salary broke 6 figures and my wife’s salary as a public school teacher never did, but we are both separately fully FI. It just took frugality, investing, and time.

6. The “middle” is boring.

I have heard people who are on the path to financial independence extoll that the middle is boring. Meaning that after they have worked out a solid savings rate, optimized their spending, and automated their finances, that life becomes boring while they are waiting to reach early retirement which, as previously mentioned, takes many years. What? Boring? The middle IS life! This is the time to make and cash in on memory dividends. This was the time I enjoyed weekly family game nights, pancakes on Sunday mornings, frequent local camping trips, time reading books aloud together as a family, and taking memorable inexpensive vacations using home exchanges and travel points. This was the time I achieved a sense of accomplishment in my professional life. This was the time I coached my daughter’s soccer team for 13 years. This was the time I went for evening walks with my wife along the trails in our neighborhood. Sure, the time freedom I have in retirement is AMAZING, but I wouldn’t trade away any of the “middle.” Working doesn’t make the middle boring. Boredom is a mindset you don’t have to have. Minimalism can help.

There are many paths to reach financial independence and early retirement. Your path is your own, but it doesn’t have to be a race, it doesn’t have to be boring, and it doesn’t have to be a life of deprivation and unhappiness. Quite the contrary––it can be great! Life in early retirement is amazing, so unless working is truly what you value most, I recommend actually retiring when you get there. So many possibilities await you. 

Tips for Hiking the Lycian Way Inn-to-Inn

Launa and I just completed hiking 243 miles (per her Fitbit) over 26 days along the Lycian Way (Likya Yolu in Turkish). Four of those days were “adventure” days where we visited ancient ruins and other sites. This is on top of hiking 100 miles from Bologna to Florence along the Via Degli Dei the week before.

As you might guess, we love inn-to-inn hikes and our adventure hiking the Lycian way (roughly from Fethiye to Antalya Turkiye) has been the pinnacle so far! The trail is challenging—we estimate ascending ~55,000 feet of elevation and descending about the same. The trail was often rocky with loose scree making the footing challenging. The views of the Mediterranean and the mountains were breathtaking and the scenery varied along the route. We hiked the route without camping gear limiting our options for accommodations but also limiting the weight in our packs.

Lycian rock tombs from 5th century BC — the ancient ruins were amazing!

Here are my tips for hiking this trail inn-to-inn:

Hike from west to east and in April and early May.

We started from Fethiye, Turkiye on April 11 and we would not want it any hotter (or much colder). Waiting until late May or beyond will be much hotter and water will become more difficult to come by AND the resort towns will have more tourists, increasing prices and limiting lodging availability. There were reports of snow in the higher elevations from the eastern (Antalya) side a week before we started, but by the time we got to the highest point, the temperature was perfect for hiking (~55F). Plus, the plethora of spring wild flowers and humming honey bees were icing on the cake.

View on first day out of Ovacik

You don’t need to book rooms far in advance.

We are planners and we didn’t want to risk not having a room available. But starting in April before the main tourist season along the coast, every lodge had plenty of space. In fact, we were the only lodgers at a few of our lodgings. We discovered that what looked like limited options online was due to some places being closed until late March and early April. My wife still thinks having all the lodging planned out was a good thing, but if I were hiking it again, I would instead make reservations a day or two in advance and give ourselves more flexibility. If language is a barrier, we could ask our lodging host to reserve rooms on our behalf. (Note, you can use Booking.com for lodging in Turkiye—but only from outside the country. Once in Turkiye,  Booking.com won’t work.

This was a simple inn but the hosts were so kind and generous

Take the alternative route through Sidyma.

The Sidyma ruins were our first Lycian tombs we visited along the trail. While they are not the most famous, they were fun to see. And stay at Fatma’s Sidyma Homes! This was our best cultural interaction and best dinner (and second best breakfast) along the trail. While the rooms are small with a shared bathroom, Fatma is a fabulous host and her place has a wonderful view of the valley and snow-capped mountains in the distance. There is also a good chance that Kate Clow, the founder of the trail will join you for breakfast as she lives nearby and is good friends with Fatma. We gained a new appreciation for the trail talking with Kate.

With Kate Clow, Lycian Way founder, and Fatma, owner of Sidyma Homes

Carry a stone in your pocket.

Aggressive dogs are a concern along the trail, more so in towns where they are guarding their property. The dogs guarding goats were wary of us, but the shepherds did a good job of controlling them. We gave all the dogs a wide berth. The handful of dogs who attempted to leave their property and come at us were quickly deterred when they saw us bend over and pick up a stone and act like we were going to throw it. This action stopped 98% of the dogs in their tracks (we even had a couple lay down or turn sideways to us). I needed to toss a couple warning throws to get the attention of the other 2% but I never had to actually throw a stone at a dog. The reason I recommend carrying a stone vs just picking one up on the spot, is when you are in towns on paved roads, stones might be hard to come by when you need one the most. Odds are you will end your hike with the same stone you started with, as I did.

My stone — a helpful companion for 243 miles

Bring hiking poles.

There are many benefits from hiking with hiking poles, but in particular to the Lycian Way I found them invaluable when coming down steep slippery sections, helping me push up steep inclines, and fending off some prickly bushes that would poke through my lightweight pants. They may have also deterred a few dogs and would be my defense if a dog did ignore my stone-throwing gesture.

Buy beers at the market.

I enjoyed a nice barley pop at the end of each day when I could. Most places (but not all) would sell me a beer at a premium (200 TL = ~$5.25), but with a little foresight, I would scope out the local markets and buy a beer to enjoy that evening from $1.50 to $2.50 apiece. We would also pick up lunch supplies as we enjoyed eating a picnic lunch on the trail–usually peanuts, crackers, and an orange.

Enjoying the view with a beer from the nearby market after a day of hiking

Build in time for chai (Turkish tea).

Enjoying the generous hospitality of the Turkish people was one of the best parts of our hike. There are many locals along the trail who have set up small stands to sell fruit, juice, chai, snacks, and food like gozleme (delicious Turkish pancakes). I enjoyed days when I built in some extra time in the day to allow me to stop in and enjoy some chai and gozleme. Likewise, I was sad on days when we had to skip the stop and keep hiking to get to our inn before it got too late.

We slowed down and enjoyed Turkish Chai provided by our host after a day of hiking

Careful which ATM you use.

Most ATMs in the towns along the trail charge an exorbitant 10% fee–yikes! Try to locate a bank machine that only charges the standard couple of dollars for withdrawals. There were several places along the way that only took cash (most would take Euros or dollars), so having some cash on you is essential.

Skip the taxis and ride the dolmus (or hitchhike).

As in so many locations, Taxis are way overpriced in Turkiye. But no worries, the local buses and minibuses (dolmus) are easy to ride. Just flag one down (they will often honk to see if you are interested) and ask the driver if they are going the way you are (if it is not clear from the sign in the front window). If they are not, they will explain when and where to catch the one you need. They are inexpensive and fun experiences (and often quite efficient). We decided to skip from Demre to Karaoz because lodging was hard to find on this stretch, so we hopped on a bus in Demre to Kumluca and then grabbed a dolmus to Karaoz and was dropped off in front of our accommodations. A dolmus is a fun part of the adventure. We didn’t hitchhike, but several fellow hikers shared their success in doing so and how friendly the locals were.

Canyon above Kabak — one of my favorite days of hiking

Go now before it becomes too popular.

As with so many great places to visit, they can become popular and overrun driving up prices and often causing places to adapt local culture to tourist preferences. Turkiye appears to be one of those places that is rapidly developing. If you are interested in hiking the Lycian Way before it becomes too commercialized, I recommend you hike it sooner rather than later.

There are a couple of challenging sections which makes this a fabulous hike (I’m in Goynuk Canyon here)

I hope these tips help you enjoy a great hike along the Lycian Way!

Here is a clip of our hiking theme song on our last day of hiking — a riff on the chorus of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” We cracked ourselves up making up different lyrics to many songs, but this one seemed to stick. (Note, this does include a cuss word.)

I also recommend you subscribe to my wife’s virtual postcards at LaunaAtLarge@Substack.com to follow along with our travel adventures.

A Detailed Guide To DIY Scanning Your Old Photos

So, you have a lot of old photos scattered in boxes and old albums in your basement and attic. If you agree with my case to scan your old photos yourself and you decided to skip an overpriced photo scanning service and help cash in on your memory dividends this article is for you. You’ve taken on a big job, but a very rewarding one—I think you will love the results. As my wife and I embraced minimalism and downsized our personal possessions by 98% in preparation to become full-time nomads, we digitized all our old photos and then discarded the old hard copies. We couldn’t be happier with our decision!

Below are the detailed steps we followed (and valuable lessons we learned) while culling our approximately 10,000 hard copy photos down to 7,000, scanning them, and integrating them into our digital photo collection. In addition to finally dealing with our decades of hard copy photos, we culled and organized our unwieldy digital photos, making our final combined, refined, and organized collection complete and easy to enjoy. I hope this will help you as you tackle your own photo scanning project. If you have questions, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.

Decide on a photo software solution to manage your digital photo collection. 

We decided to use Google Photos. We were already using it and liked the search and facial recognition features. It was the easiest for us. There are likely other programs that will work as well or better (Reddit may be a good place to get recommendations). 

Buy a photo scanner. 

We purchased the FastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-speed Photo Scanning System for about $600.  It worked beautifully for the scale of our project. The process outlined in this post is based on using this particular scanner. Another scanner may require a slightly different process. Here is what I liked about it:

  • It allowed me to insert up to 36 photos in the scanner feed slot at once, and more than one group of photos could be scanned into the same batch. [For this article, I use “group” to mean a stack of up to 36 photos (max allowed by the scanner), and I use “batch” to mean all of the groups scanned at once under the same month and year and file name.]
  • FastFoto software allowed me to add the month and year to the photo file metadata. This ability is critical to the usability of the final collection; some scanners out there do not have this function.
  • Scans at 300 dpi (dots per inch), 600 dpi (standard), and 1200 dpi. I used 600 dpi for most of the photos.
  • Allowed wireless scanning, so I didn’t need to wrestle with a cord between my laptop and computer.
  • Worked well with my Macbook Air laptop. (I can’t speak for PCs, but the scanner software supported both.)

Gather your Photos.

Gathering as many hard copy photos as possible before starting will help avoid surprises of finding more later,and increase the efficiency of the scanning process. 

  • Gather all albums, scrapbooks, loose print photos in boxes, unique photos from frames, etc. We found photos in our files, between pages of books, with our kids’ school artwork, among work papers, in frames, and in the backs of drawers. We were dramatically downsizing, and we were surprised at where photos appeared. 
  • Also gather all your “loose” electronic photos: emailed photos, thumbdrives, photos in messages, etc.and pull them into your photo management software to create a complete collection.

Cull Your Photos (to include digital).

Cull your digital collection first. Since we embraced digital photography, we all began taking tons of photos—perhaps seven of the same sunset, twelve of the same soccer team holding up their trophies. We intended to select the best one to keep, but time passes, lives are busy, and the digital photos piled up. In our case, there were thousands of digital photos that needed to go. Do this first, and make sure the “loose” photos you’re keeping from emails or old thumb drives are integrated chronologically.  Once you’ve got the digital collection in shape, it won’t be as daunting to add the thousands of newly scanned hard copy photos.

  • To avoid scanning unnecessary photos (and later having to cull them or sort through them online), throw away the photos that are duplicates (or near duplicates) and that don’t provide a meaningful memory jogger of the people or event being documented. Similar photos of the same thing (e.g., my wife and I each took hundreds of photos of Egyptian hieroglyphics) can overwhelm an event and make it difficult to find the photos you care about and that truly capture the location or event.
  • This can be done as part of your organizing effort described below.  We culled as we carefully removed photos from old albums and organized them into scannable groups.
  • Culling our photos (digital and hard copy) was part of our decluttering process. Just as having too many physical possessions can be overwhelming, too many photos of the same event can be as well. 

Organize your hard copy photos for scanning.

This step represented a lion’s share of the work in the project. We set out the photos as we organized them on a long table. 

  • Carefully remove photos from albums, scrapbooks, frames, etc.
  • Remove as much residue from the back as possible (dried glue, bits of paper, and adhesive). Be fastidious about this to minimize rejections in the scanner. 
  • Organize them on your table in chronological order, photo side down, in groups of up to 36 (the maximum the scanner will handle at once). We set 30 as our target to be safe as it is easy to scan more than one group at a time.
  • On the backside of the groups (the side facing up) label each group using a small Post-It with the month and year (additionally label with event and location when possible—optional, but helps in future searches), and the number of photos in the group (to help verify that all were scanned). For example “Oct 1997, Purdue graduation, Indiana, 34” or “Dec 1998, Yucatan, Mexico, 36.”
  • Each group of photos was laid partially on the previous group but with the Post-it still visible to conserve space since we had so many photos. 
  • Photos in each group should be generally organized by photo size and turned so the photos enter the scanner in the same direction. We turned all the vertical photos so the top faced the left. 
  • If there are major size differences in the photos in a group, then they need to be pulled out and scanned as a separate group. For example, if you have an 8×10 of a graduation, scan it as a separate group in the batch. 

Set-up your scanner. 

  • The scanner has a setting for dpi. You may wish to scan a few photos at different dpi to experiment and see what you feel is the right balance between quality of photo and size of digital file. (I used 600 dpi for most of our photos). 
  • You also need to decide if you want the scanner to automatically adjust for red-eye and/or color. I found these adjustments to be hit or miss, so I just scanned the photos as they were without these adjustments. 
  • I found the wireless feature to be nice as I didn’t have to have a cord connecting my laptop with the scanner.

Scan your photos

  • Pick up a single group of photos, setting the Post-It label nearby for reference. Lightly fan the photos in case there is still a tiny bit of leftover glue/residue that can cause a jam, then put the group in the scanner.
  • Select the month and year in the software and add a file name description. I tried to include the general location that represented the majority of photos in the batch.
  • Select the file location for the scanned files to be saved to. I created a “Scanned Photos” folder. Once the file is selected, the software will default to that location unless you change it. See “Managing scanned photo files” below for more details.
  • Reduce the size of your batches for better chronological and location results in the metadata. This takes more time and effort, but it’s worth it for the usability of your final collection. For example, in some months we did several interesting things—visited family over Christmas in Washington DC,  took a trip to Mexico. If I select December 1998 and then add a file name “Washington DC Mexico Others” then the photo files will be named “1998_December_DC Mexico Others_XXXX” [the last is the unique number each photo is given in the batch like 0001, 0002, etc.]. Then when I search for “Mexico” in Google Photos, all of the pictures in this batch (to include the DC photos and any others) will return in the search results. To avoid this, I would need to separate out the Mexico photos into a separate batch for that same month. This is more work, but you get better results. 
  • Select the scan photos button.
  • Keep an eye on the photos being scanned, especially if there are unusual shapes or ones with residue on them, to watch for double scans or catch jams.
  • Once the group is through, check the count on the software with the Post-it note total. If they don’t match you will need to review the photos to see if one or more didn’t scan. See below for trouble-shooting scanning problems.
  • Add the next group you want in the same batch (i.e., same month, year, and file description) into the scanner feed. The software will ask if there are more photos to scan – select “yes” if you do. Select “no” if you don’t, to end scanning that batch.
  • Once I completed a batch, the FastFoto software would show me a thumbnail of the photos scanned. I used the rotation function to correct any rotation mistakes to ensure that the photo file had the correct rotation (The software does pretty well with rotation, but it misses some).
  • The software saves the batch into a separate folder under the folder you designate using the date and name you provided for the batch (e.g., “1998_December_DC Mexico Others”). 
  • Since the newly created scanning files were so large (some were 16MB each), I didn’t want them to eat up all of my Google Photos cloud storage and I wanted to more easily access the files using whatever connection my phone might have, so I added a process to make the files smaller before transferring them to Google Photos (see “Managing scanned photo files” below). You may decide differently. 
  • Repeat the scanning process for the next batch and the next until you’ve got through them all.
  • Important Note: once you start making date changes and photo edits in the photo management software after you finish scanning (not the scanner software), those changes are not included in the photo file metadata and will likely be lost if you later change software programs. That is why scanning by month and year, adding a useful filename, and fixing the rotation during the scanning process will give you better results. The more you fix afterwards in the software, the more work you stand to lose by switching software programs.

How We Handled Ancestor Photos (dates unknown).

  • We had several albums and many frames with old family photos from the 1800s, most of which we didn’t know the exact dates (or even what year).
  • Instead of trying to pick the dates, we created batches that were in general chronological order and then picked an old year (e.g., 1930) that would catch our attention in Google Photos and pre-date the rest of our collection from our own lives. 
  • We then scanned in batches using different months to separate out the batches. The oldest batch was January, 1930, the next was February, 1930. We didn’t need beyond December, but we could have continued with January, 1931.
  • For my historic family photos, we used 1930. For my wife’s historic family photos, we used 1935. This way they could be easily found and not intermingled.
  • We entered  notes on many of the old photos into our photo management software so we could be reminded of who the picture was of and other pertinent details. Several of my wife’s family photos had a date on the back, so she entered that date into the notes on the photo. She didn’t use that date in Google Photos, though—she kept it in “1935” so they were all together, easy to find and enjoy.  
One of dozens of framed old family photos we scanned into our collection. Now they won’t deteriorate further from light exposure.

How We Handled School Photos

  • Most of our photos of our kids are digital, but we did have a nice 8×10 hard copy of each year of their school photos to scan in. We valued being able to go from the Kindergarten to Senior picture and see how they grew and matured in just 13 pictures. 
  • To be able to do this digitally, we decided to scan them in as a single batch. Once the batch was scanned in, we then put them into a single album (for easy viewing) and then modified the dates in the software to align with the start of each school year and to integrate with our digital collection.
  • An alternative would have been scanning each one as a separate batch (of one photo) and using the month and year the photo was taken in the scanner software. Then we could have found each one in our photos and put them in a single album.

Troubleshooting tips for scanner and scanning

  • Overall, the scanner worked well for clean, traditional photos, but since many photos (about 15%) were from scrapbooks, were unusually sized, or had sticky residue from the photo albums, I needed to provide some extra care to get them scanned. 
  • Photos with a lot of paper or glue made the scanner think that two photos were going through at once and it would stop and give an error. I retrieved the offending photo and then fed it through in the same batch again. If that didn’t work, then I would try again rotating the photo when placing it in the scanner feed (i.e., different side or upside down)—this usually did the trick. 
  • The sticky residue would occasionally cause the scanner to indicate that it needed to be cleaned. The scanner came with a soft cloth for wiping the scanner clean. Don’t ignore the warning—doing so could cause the scanned files to have vertical lines on them caused by the adhesive “dirt” on the scanner glass. It cleaned off easily and reset.
  • For small photos like wallets or booth photos that wouldn’t fit on the two rollers in the feed slot, I would tape two related photos together or tape one to a thin piece of white card stock (which I could crop out later).
  • For photos that had been cut into unusual shapes, I inserted them along the straightest line. For a couple I gently glued them to a piece of white paper, but the scanner often thought this was two photos at a time. With patience, though, I eventually got almost every unusually shaped photo to scan.
  • For old Polaroid style photos that were thicker and had slight air pockets (which the scanner would reject as too thick), I cut out the top layer photo and scanned the photo by itself.
  • In the end we took a photo of 5 photos that just wouldn’t scan but we didn’t want to be without. Not bad for scanning 7,000 photos!
This scrapbook photo was lightly glued onto thin white paper and scanned through.

Managing scanned photo files

  • After I had scanned about 1,000 photos, I would rename the “Scanned Photos” file to “Scanned Photos Jan 1973-Dec 1978” (or whatever date range fit the photos) and then create a new folder called “Scanned Photos” in the same place as where I previously had it so the FastFoto software would still default to it as I scanned more photos. I did this as I didn’t want to take a chance of having a single folder get corrupted and losing all of my work.
  • I also took the time to adjust the size of the scanned photo files after each batch (so I wouldn’t lose track). You could decide to adjust them all at once, but I liked getting photos to the finish line as I went and seeing that they arrived into Google Photos looking good before scanning them all.
  • Here is the photo file size reduction process I used with my Macbook Air:
    • Opened newly created photo folder in Finder.
    • Selected all of the photos.
    • Under the File menu in Finder, I selected “Open With” and then selected “Preview.” 
    • Once all of the photos in the batch opened in Preview I selected then all in Preview.
    • Under the File menu in Preview, I selected “Export Selected Images…”
    • I then selected “Show Options” at the bottom.
    • I used the file quality slider to reduce the photo file size and save the resulting files into a new folder called “Upload to Google Photos.” I noticed that adjusting the slider just a hair from the right made the file much smaller but kept good quality.
    • Make sure your destination folder is your “Upload to Google Photos” folder
    • Once the photo files are exported from Preview be sure to close preview so it doesn’t include the previous batch in with the new batch and cause duplicates.
    • After I resized all of the photos in the folders of the “Scanned Photos Jan 1973-Dec 1978” folder into the Upload to Google Photos folder, I then renamed the Upload to Google Photos folder to “Upload to Google Photos Jan 1973-Dec 1978” (or whatever date range fit the photos) and then create a new folder called “Upload to Google Photos” in the same place as where I previously had it so Preview would default to it on the next round.
    • I did keep a copy of all original scanned photo files on a separate external hard drive just in case I needed them for some reason. 

Storing Back-ups Before Throwing Away The Originals.

We really did throw away all those hard copy photos. We wondered if we’d really be able to do it, but after ensuring they were truly scanned and safe, we found it wasn’t that hard to do—in fact, it was a very rewarding part of the process to let it all go. We freed up all that physical space but had much better access to our photos than we’d ever had in the past. Here was our process for ensuring we had them digitally stored and backed up: 

  • Before we discarded our physical photos, I did a spot check to make sure the newly scanned files were showing up in Google Photos.
  • I downloaded a copy of the whole collection from Google Photos and stored it on an external hard drive with a few other keepsakes in a climate-controlled storage room.
  • My son downloaded a separate copy of the full collection from Google Photos onto his server (he’s a computer guy with a redundant hard-drive array).
  • We now have three separate copies of our photo collection, located in three different places (the cloud, Washington State, and Virginia) so a fire or a cloud crash wouldn’t destroy our photo collection.
  • I update these back-ups from Google Photos every 6 to 12 months with our latest photos. We continue to live abundant lives and take a lot of photos—and continue to cull them! 

I hope this guide is helpful as you tackle your photo scanning project. While it was a lot of work, it was worth every minute of effort as we frequently enjoy and share our old photos with family and friends and cash in on our memory dividends! Let me know how it’s going with your scanning project in the comments, and feel free to ask questions—I’m happy to help out as much as I can.

The Case For Scanning Your Old Photos Yourself

My wife and I bought a $600 high-quality photo scanner and spent the time to cull, organize, and scan our 10,000 or so pre-digital hard copy photos. We are so glad we did! Now, they are a seamless part of our digital photo collection. Our pictures are always with us and we can easily search by date, topic, location, or face—memory dividends we cash in on frequently. 

But there are services available to do this! Couldn’t we have spent a few more dollars and had someone else scan our photos, saving countless hours of work while getting the same or better quality result? 

Unfortunately, no. Those services may look like a great idea at first glance, but the companies offering photo scanning services charge a lot of money to provide a lower overall quality product, AND you still do the lion’s share of the work. 

When my wife and I became minimalists and decided to scan our numerous boxes of photo albums and loose photos, we thought a photo scanning service would be the way to go. I researched numerous companies and concluded that if you want your old photos to be completely digitized, readily accessible, and in chronological order, you really need to do it yourself. Here are 5 reasons why you should keep your money in your pocket and take on this project yourself. 

  1. You Spend A Lot of Your Time Either Way

This was a big eye-opener: only you can decide what photos to keep, and culling and organizing is what takes the most time in this project (we culled out about 30%). Saving time wasn’t in the cards. You, the owner of the photos, are the one who must remove the photos from the albums (or frames) and arrange them in size order in the company-provided boxes and insert note cards with year and event name (if allowed). Then after the scanned photos are returned, spend countless hours by hand fixing rotation and re-dating them to get some semblance of chronological order. Since this does not change the photo file’s metadata, this work likely disappears if you change photo organization solutions.

You still have to deal with any photos the company rejected (too thick, too small, too large, too misshapen, too much residue on photos, etc.). This would have been thousands of photos in our case, so I would have needed to get my own scanner to capture them anyway.

These companies are only scanning the easiest photos in the easiest possible way (for them). All the essential prep work of culling and organizing, post work of hand rotating and re-dating, as well as scanning the more challenging photos remains in your hands no matter what. That’s the heart of the job. What companies are offering to do—for a hefty fee—is the simple part. You have to invest the time no matter what. 

  1. You Get to Include More of Your Photos

Companies limit photo size from 3×3 to 8×10. That means all your old photos outside that range will either not be in your digital collection, or you’ll end up scanning them yourself anyway. I was able to scan wallet sized photos (sometimes I taped two together to make it work), photo booth strips, misshapen, fragile, or torn photos, thick old polaroids, and larger photos (e.g., 8×14). 

Companies reject photos with any residue. Thousands of our photos had sticky residue, old glue, or paper stuck to the back after being carefully removed from old family albums and scrapbooks. I was able to coax almost all of these photos through the scanner by turning them or removing residue (I couldn’t scan only about 20 photos out of 7,000!). A company would never even try to do this, but we did the work and we are so glad to have all of these photos in our collection.

Photo on Left: Having fun with our kids in a photo booth

  1. You Get Much Better Chronological Ordering

Companies don’t add past dates to the photos and generally require photos to be organized by size. So all 3x3s are together, 4x6s are together, 5x7s, 8x10s, etc. Yikes! This means that they will show up in your online photo collection in this jumbled non-chronological order unless you spend many hours re-dating them. I organized and scanned our photos dating them by month and year regardless of size. As a result, we had to do only very limited re-dating (e.g., putting the baby shower before the birth in the same month). Unless you hand re-date them, your old photos will show up in your collection with the date the company scanned them, not when they were taken. 

Fun wallet-sized photos a scanning service would have rejected (I taped the two together and scanned them)
  1. You Get a Better Product

In addition to having a more complete photo collection and better chronological ordering including better file metadata when you scan it yourself, you can add location or event name in the photo file name for improved search capability. You also have more control over scan quality. Some companies scan at 300 dpi (dots per inch) while many scan at 600 dpi. Doing it myself, I could choose based on the photos and adjust the file size. I scanned most of my photos at the higher quality 600 dpi, and some important photos at 1200 dpi. This quality and flexibility just isn’t available from a company.

A scanning service would have rejected this circular-shaped photo of our family supporting our son as a baby.
  1. You Save Money

I put this last because saving money wasn’t my highest priority. If companies provided a service worth paying for, I would have done it. But why pay a lot more money to a company only to get an inferior product and wind up putting in the same amount of time as if you scanned them yourself?

We spent $600 on a new, high-quality scanner. We could have sold it and recouped much of the value, but we decided to give it to a relative to scan her photos (and she will pass it onto others in our family). I researched estimates to scan our 7,000 photos—one company estimated $4,300, another company $4200, while a third was $1668. The least expensive I found was $1,340 for non-chronological scanning. By scanning our photos ourselves, we got a better product and saved a lot of money. Your savings, if you do it yourself, will vary based on the number of photos you need scanned. The only way we could get the great results we now enjoy—at any price—was to do it ourselves. 

Now that all of our old photos are scanned in by date, we have enjoyed and shared them far more in the last 2 years than we had over the last three decades combined. These are treasured memories of our lives. Doing the work ourselves was well worth it!

A photo from my parent’s wedding — so much fun to readily share these old photos with family and friends!

[This post was republished on the minimalism and simple living website No Sidebar]

Cashing In On Memory Dividends

My wife and I are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary this year (and 38 years of being a couple). While on a public ferry in Luxor, Egypt we quizzed each other on the many other ferry boats we had ridden together. We each remembered examples the other hadn’t. It was a fun walk down memory lane from the British Columbia ferry we rode on our honeymoon to a recent public row boat from the cities of Rabat to Salé across the Bou Regreg river in Morocco [see photo above]. 

In another example, my Uncle Dave (on my wife’s side) passed away recently. When reminiscing about what a great uncle he was with Aunt Bonnie (his wife), I pulled up my photos on my laptop of Uncle Dave using our photo software face recognition feature. Aunt Bonnie and I had a lovely moment together reminiscing and celebrating her husband’s life and how he had been a part of our lives. 

In each of these examples we were cashing in on our memory dividends. And by doing it with someone close, we enjoyed it even more.

The power of compounding is an important part of a financial plan. Over many years (decades) interest and dividends earned from investments grows exponentially and can outgrow the original amount invested. Memory dividends work similarly and I would argue are more important investments than our financial ones. We have the opportunity to create lasting memories everyday with ourselves and with our friends and family. But often we could do better in taking the time to cement them in our memories so we don’t forgo opportunities to enjoy them later.  

Here are a few ideas to help maximize our memory dividends—both for making them and for cashing them in. 

Invest in Close Long-Term Relationships (and cash in on those investments regularly)

Having hundreds of “friends” on social media is not the same as having several close friends (and family) that you invest quality time with. While Facebook attempts to leverage the power of memory dividends by frequently reminding us of our old posts (which often make me smile), it misses the bigger point of building long-term, real human relationships. 

I have known my oldest friend since the 5th grade. Other than a year as college roommates, we haven’t lived near each other for going on 40 years. But we have worked to stay connected through letters (yes, before email), phone calls, and hanging out when visiting back home. Looking to invest even more in our friendship, we created a new tradition in 2011. Each year since (COVID excepted) we have enjoyed a long weekend in a city somewhere around the country to see a football or baseball game together. The game is an excuse—we just hang out and catch up on the world and each other. We joke about our joint high school graduation speech that I screwed up, reminisce about our time in college, analyse our favorite sports teams, and share about our kids whom we both know so well. We invest in each other and we cash in on our memories together. 

With my best friend at our first annual game weekend together (Lambeau Field) — (What does my inexpensive watch have to do with the meaning of “Millionaire”?)

I now similarly connect with my family and other close friends. As a full-time world traveler, I have numerous scheduled video calls each week with family and friends to help keep these connections strong when I am far away. When I am back in the US, I spend months visiting with family and friends—making new memories and cashing in on the dividends from these long-term relationships.

Investing the vast majority of our limited time into our closest relationships provides the highest return in memory dividends.

Divest of middling and casual relationships.

When I became a minimalist, I divested of the physical possessions and tasks that did not support my top values. This meant letting go of things I liked but were preventing me from achieving what I wanted to do the most. It changed who I was. 

Likewise I divested of relationships that were preventing me from fully focusing on the close family and friends I wanted to invest more in. When I retired early, I discovered that most of my work friends were just that—friends at work. Once I stopped working, these friendships quickly dissipated as they were not built on a deep human connection, but one of a temporary nature to fulfill a professional need. To be clear, I am happy to answer a phone call, email, text message, or chat during a chance encounter, but I no longer proactively invest in peripheral relationships. Instead, I redirect my limited resources into more meaningful long-term relationships—with a focus on spending quality time in person. 

We need to be careful not to spread ourselves too thin and inadvertently starve the relationships that mean the most to us. 

Make The Day-To-Day A Little More Memorable

While it is easier to recount fabulous vacations to exotic places like Egypt, the Grand Canyon, or other exciting and photo-worthy destinations, don’t forget to make memories in your day-to-day life. Having a weekly family game night, pancakes on Sunday mornings, frequent local camping trips, and time reading books aloud together all helped mark our time spent together with family and friends. For example, to make our family staycations more fun and memorable, our family of four each took charge of a day. During each person’s day they made a meal, picked a place to eat out and decided on the entertainment for the day which varied to include, board games, bake-offs, museums, movies, lots of hikes, and once even an escape room. One person was in charge and the rest of the family agreed to happily follow (reducing decision fatigue!). We started this tradition when our kids were a bit older and we made fabulous memories that we enjoy reliving together.     

Results of our family bake-off. Mine came in last (far right) despite including a bribe of a fine whiskey in the middle.

Take Photos and Look at Them

We tend to take a lot of photos of our time on vacation, when our children are young, and at big events (weddings, graduations, holidays, and sporting events). But we often don’t take a photo of playing a board game together, sharing a home-cooked meal, or of a walk together along the neighborhood trails. Don’t let the memories of the enjoyment of day-to-day life go undocumented. Having a lot of great photos is one thing, but looking at them is another.   

If you were born before 1980, you probably have a sizable portion of your photos as hard copies—my wife and I certainly did. Scanning in over 7,000 pics was a lot of work, but well worth it. Now our pictures are always with us and we can easily search by date, topic, location, or face. My dad was recently on my mind (he passed away from Alzheimer’s in 2024), so even though I was abroad, I pulled up my photos of him to remind me. 

We have looked at and shared these old photos more in the last 18 months than we had in the last 20 years! When we start reminiscing with our family and friends we are quick to share photos of those times together.

With my Dad in 1996, well before the effects of Alzheimer’s took hold of him. (from my old hard copy photos I scanned)

Reminisce

We can strengthen our memories through recall. We can certainly do this ourselves. I keep a list of all of the books I have read (at least the books I could remember when I made the list in 2009). I enjoy being reminded of the stories and concepts as I occasionally peruse the list. Keeping a journal can help. I have long-resisted keeping a diary or journaling. Honestly it sounded hokey. But my wife journals everyday and I have come to appreciate its value. She keeps a simple record of where we were, who we saw, what we did and ate each day. It has been invaluable in helping us cash in on memory dividends.

Reminiscing alone is certainly good, but doing it with family and friends compounds the memory dividends as you help each other remember even more than you would by yourself and we get to enjoy them together. This can be done in many ways. My wife and I created a list of how we celebrated our wedding anniversaries each year and of the plays we have seen together. We keep a small box of “What we are grateful for” that we bring out each Thanksgiving. We enjoy reading what we wrote from years past and we complete a new card, investing for future memory dividends. 

Quizzes help us learn school materials and they can be a fun game with family and friends to help us reminisce together and strengthen our memories. My daughter is great at coming up with fun quizzes (our favorite camping spot?, favorite food on vacation?, our favorite home exchange?, and so on) that get us all sharing fun memories together. We will often quiz each other at the end of a vacation which helps cement our memories and starts cashing in on our memory dividends we just made—no need to wait!

Investing in memories and cashing in on them isn’t about living in the past. It is about enjoying your life today with those closest to you and building a life of contentment. Make new memories AND make time to cash in on these memory investments with family and friends.

Our Thanksgiving memory box

[This post was republished on the minimalism and simple living website No Sidebar]

Self-Insurance: The Second Important Job For My Emergency Fund

Having an emergency fund is foundational to healthy finances and our pursuit of financial independence. From an unexpected car repair to the loss of a job, the primary job of an emergency fund is to help you weather unexpected financial challenges that could derail your financial progress. Depending on your situation, you may have anywhere from $1,000 upward to 6 months worth of expenses in a readily accessible account standing watch over your financial castle while you sleep a little more soundly. As important as that is, I want to talk here about the important side-hustle I have assigned my monetary firemen as they wait in the station training and polishing the emergency fund fire truck: self-insurance.

By strategically managing my insurance deductibles and not purchasing the myriad of minor insurance products on the market, I have been able to save a lot of money, and hopefully you can too.

In a nutshell, self-insurance is a financial strategy where you set aside money to pay for losses instead of buying insurance. It’s also known as self-funding. You save money instead of paying premiums to an insurance company. You pay for losses out of your own pocket instead of filing a claim. 

To be clear, traditional insurance is an important financial tool to mitigate risks from rare, but costly, catastrophic events such as a house fire, a lawsuit from a car crash, death, or other major liabilities. Insurance can also be helpful when more common events might be devastating to your finances. When I was younger (and poorer), a new car tire was a major expense in my budget, whereas today I can afford to replace a car that is totaled. So as my emergency fund strengthened, my ability to self-insure also increased. 

Insurance companies are businesses and make money from the premiums we pay – a lot of money when nothing happens, and a little less when they need to pay significant claims. They take advantage of our salience bias – a cognitive bias that predisposes us to focus on what is the most prominent, visible, or emotionally striking events in our environment. Insurance companies monetize our fears. They also play on our desire to conform (e.g., “9,384 people have insured this trip”). Almost everyone has a memorable story of when they did use their warranty or travel insurance or when it might have been useful (like the one time I spilled water on my 8-month old $1,000 laptop), but while memorable, these stories represent a small minority of our total experience with insurable products.    

Like investing in the stock market, self-insurance requires risk tolerance and time. While an insurance company spreads risk across many participants, self-insurers spread risk across all types of insurance products and over time. Instead of looking at each situation individually (e.g., should I pay $30 to cover this $1000 airfare?), we look at all of our family’s self-insurance opportunities over time. For example, paying to replace a phone dropped in the water once in 15 years is more than offset by not paying for phone replacement insurance (at $100+ per phone per year) for a family’s four’s phones for that same period. The total of all the premiums for unused insurance for every flight, hotel, electronics items, etc., would far exceed the combined total of the replacement costs I actually incurred from self-insurance.   

I buy insurance for catastrophic liability to include home (high deductible), car (high deductible), umbrella, and term life (never “whole” or “permanent” life!). But my wife and I skipped survivor insurance for my pension and there are other areas, listed below, in which my self-insurance strategies have saved me tens of thousands of dollars (not including compounded returns from investing the money instead) over the past three decades.

Auto collision and comprehensive

I drive well. My wife drives well. In our 79 years of combined driving history we have had only 3 at-fault claims (one involving another vehicle). The last one was 11 years ago. My two kids are both safe drivers. They have had zero at-fault claims in their 12 combined years of driving–the highest risk time for young drivers. Our vanity is not insulted if we have superficial scratches on the vehicle (whether caused by us or someone else) – if the car still works and is safe, we ignore it. If you or a member of your family are not good drivers, then you may wish to take a more conservative (i.e., expensive) approach to your car insurance. 

Strategy: I have always kept a high deductible for my family’s situation. Starting with $500 when I was young, I quickly pushed it to $1000, and then to $2500 over the last 11 years. For our cars older than 6 years, we dropped collision and comprehensive altogether even with teenagers driving as we saw they were capable, smart drivers and we could afford self-insurance. I never buy extended warranties (or undercoating) for cars. 

Savings from low auto insurance premiums helped pay for our son’s college

Product warranties and extended warranties

For numerous purchases such as TVs, computers, printers, blenders, appliances, phones, etc. etc., stores (online or brick-and-mortar) often ask me if I wish to purchase an extended warranty. I never do. I also never buy coverage for repairs or replacement caused by human error. I couldn’t afford them when I was poor and I could afford to self-insure when I wasn’t. Turning down hundreds of warranty offers over the last 30 years easily saved me $10K or more (excluding investment returns). While spending the $1,000 to replace my water-damaged laptop was a bummer, it was a bargain when compared to my self-insurance savings! 

Strategy: Many products come with manufacturer warranties (if they don’t I am wary, and I’ll look for a better product). In addition, I make purchases using a credit card that provides one year of extended coverage (and I get travel points), though I have never needed to make a claim. I protect my purchases, too, with physical forms of insurance–for example, I buy quality phone cases and screen covers and connect my home electronics to surge protectors. 

Travel Insurance

I have found travel insurance to be the least useful insurance product for the cost. I purchased Amtrak tickets recently. With the company, I could pay $24 per ticket for non-refundable (my fault not Amtrak’s) or $26 per ticket for fully refundable and changeable tickets. While $2 doesn’t seem like much, that same rate of insurance for a $1,000 airline ticket would be $83! Then, I was offered to purchase trip insurance for $4.50 – even for the fully refundable tickets! 

Most situations for travel delays like weather are covered by the airline or hotel. I have been on many flights that were delayed or cancelled and every time the airline has put me on another flight. On a trip to Hawaii, our whole family was delayed a full day and the airline paid for hotel, transportation, and food vouchers and we flew out the next day. Travel insurance wouldn’t have covered any lost wages from the delay. If a hotel can’t accommodate me, then I have always received my money back. Airlines are required to reimburse for lost luggage and in many situations for significant flight delays. 

So, what if I can’t make the flight or get to the hotel? People often think travel insurance covers absolutely every risk you may encounter while traveling. It doesn’t. With all of the fine print and legal clauses, It is unusual to qualify for a travel insurance claim. For example, if I had a very specific risk, such as sudden need for cancer treatments, most travel insurance policies won’t cover the situation if it is a pre-existing medical condition. I had one friend who claimed on travel insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic. After an arduous claim process, the airline did reimburse her for the $580 discount ticket she purchased, but it didn’t pay for the $1,200 last minute replacement ticket she needed.   

Strategy: I rarely purchase travel insurance. I mostly book accommodations with free cancellation (i.e. they often don’t charge extra to cancel). I use my travel credit card that provides travel insurance coverage to include rental car insurance coverage (I never buy rental car insurance coverage and I fill up before returning the car). I get 3x travel points and the same or better travel insurance coverage. In most cases where a travel change is out of my control (and often when it is), the airline, hotel, or other company will accommodate my change request. I have saved tens of thousands on cost avoidance from not buying travel insurance products!

Celebrating our smart travel insurance decisions

Home Insurance

Similar to my auto insurance, I carry a high deductible on the two houses I own (currently 1% of the house replacement value). I self-insure for minor damage (e.g., small roof repair) avoiding adding to my claim history (and increased insurance premiums). If I do have a major repair that well exceeds my deductible, then insurance will be there to cover it (as it should). Since owning houses since 2004 (two since 2008), I have saved approximately $300 per house per year and I have only paid one $2,500 deductible in that time and one $1,200 claimable roof repair out of pocket. That is a savings of over $11K (excluding investment returns).

Renters Insurance

I only purchase renter’s insurance when a landlord or umbrella insurance policy requires it, and then I purchase only the minimum required liability coverage. I self-insure for the rest. 

Self-Insurance Is Cost Avoidance

While my large workforce of fire-fighting emergency fund dollars are invested in a low risk investment ready to handle my unforeseen emergency expenses, they are also doing great work saving me a ton of money through self-insurance. This cost avoidance has helped me achieve financial independence and early retirement. How is your insurance strategy helping you reach your goals?

Our Adventures Visiting Schools Around The World

My wife Launa has a new guest blog series at Reading Rockets about how children from different countries are taught to read. As we travel around the world, she and I are having a great time visiting local schools and talking to teachers about how children in their country learn to read. To be clear, I am just a sidekick along for the ride and taking advantage of this unique cultural exchange experience. We visit neighborhoods away from the tourist stream, see classrooms, and have deep conversations about education with teachers. When we started our full-time traveling life, Launa embarked on a book project about how children learn to read in other countries. This blog series is a snapshot each month of what she has discovered in different countries. Her first post was on Bulgaria, and her second was on Greece.

Reading Rockets website logo for Launa’s guest blog series

Even if you may not be into the details of how children learn to read, I think you will enjoy the insight in the day-to-day lives of the locals in the different places through the universal lens of education. A new post about a new country (Morocco is third) will be published each month. I hope you will follow-along the adventure.

Learn more about Launa and find links to her Learning to Read Around The World blog posts here.

Many thanks to Launa’s friend Rachael Worthington Walker for having Launa on her blog “Book Life” as a guest blogger. Rachael is a longtime champion of kids, books, and kids reading books!

The More of Minimalism

Minimalism has had a profoundly positive impact on my life. I’m healthier and calmer, I have more time and flexibility with money, and I’m more content overall. In an effort to share why I have chosen a minimalist life and why it is so rewarding to me, here are my eight benefits of being a minimalist: 

1. More Time to Focus on What I Value 

Minimalism helped me focus on my highest priorities. By getting rid of the physical things from activities that were not my highest priorities (e.g., canning equipment, guitar and musical gear, biking gear, and old collections), I was able to shift the pieces of time spent on each of these lower-priority pursuits to my more important priorities. I now have more time to travel, be with family and friends, take care of myself, be outdoors, and follow my curiosity.

By pursuing these top priorities and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need 98% of my belongings and I became a different person in the process. The exact percentage isn’t important—the number will vary from person to person—but I think almost everyone’s personal belongings will significantly decrease when we focus on only those priorities that truly matter to us and let go of all the stuff belonging to lower priorities. Now I spend a lot less time researching, buying, repairing, cleaning, and disposing of stuff I don’t need. This provides me an enormous amount of time to do what I value most. 

I also save time managing all that stuff. During my years as an active duty military member, I moved houses 13 times in 20 years. By my 5th move, I had 5 sets of heavy-duty metal shelving for garage or basement storage and 6 sets of tall plastic shelves for closets, utility rooms, and attic storage. Every move I would spend hours (days?) getting our 17,000 lbs of possessions stacked and stored. Many of the boxes I never even opened between moves, but often shuffled them around to reach other boxes. I would frequently open and dig through numerous boxes trying to find something I thought I had—wasting valuable time. When I got rid of all that stuff, I reclaimed my time. 

More time for camping (Flathead Lake Montana)

2. More Money to Focus on What I Value 

Similar to freeing up time to do what I value most, minimalism frees up thousands of dollars to invest or spend on the things I value most. Minimalism has freed me from the desire for more stuff to manage, clean, organize, and store. I no longer buy souvenirs or collectibles. I don’t buy new clothes for each season. I don’t buy in bulk or because an item is on sale. I also don’t need to buy storage bins, shelves, dressers, and the myriad of other things I used to organize and store all that stuff. Instead of spending money on the latest single-use kitchen gadget, electronic upgrade that I don’t need (or want), or containers to hold them, I redirect those monies toward charity, family and friends, travel, our early retirement, and the other experiences and hobbies I value the most. 

3. More Physical and Mental Whitespace

My excess stuff added visual and mental noise to my life. My possessions demanded to be cleaned, fixed, maintained, used, and sold. Not only did my stuff take up my time and clutter my space, it also cluttered my mind with a constant stream of “shoulds”—a mental to-do list if you will. As I became a minimalist and decreased the amount of stuff I owned, I also freed myself from these numerous unwanted mental conversations. It was calming and mentally quieter.

With my few remaining possessions I had the mental conversations I did want to have. I can say yes more often to the books I want to read, yes to more travel, and yes to more quality time with family and friends. Likewise, by letting go of lower-priority commitments, I gained invaluable whitespace between my remaining activities—time to reflect, rest, and recharge. 

I now dedicate a portion of time to doing nothing—to let my mind rest. Our brains need downtime to process all of the inputs that we feed it everyday. Having time to meditate, walk in nature, or just be is crucial to our mental well-being. I have learned to say yes to my health!

4. More Calm

Choosing to focus only on my top priorities freed my schedule. I no longer stress about getting from one activity to the next or having to choose between the multitude of tasks demanding to be completed. By letting go of our two cars, for example, I let go of my driving-induced stressed persona. I disliked who I became when driving in traffic—trying to will lights and other drivers to accommodate my tight schedule. It was stress I didn’t need. Now, when I do need to drive, I build in extra time, so I can mitigate many of the potential stressors of navigating the roads with my fellow humans. By reducing and focusing my commitments, I am able to build in extra time in my schedule that results in fewer activity conflicts, fewer tight transportation connections, far less stress, and much more calm  

5. More Flexibility

Having less stuff means more flexibility to do what I want and live where I want. In my old life, I had to pass over several great rental houses because my family’s 17,000 lbs of stuff just wouldn’t fit. So I ended up with more expensive and less desirable houses. But now as a minimalist, I have increased flexibility and choices. I can easily move apartments if the rent is raised too high or the owner decides not to renew my lease. I don’t need a large moving van and crew of packers and movers to move my stuff. A minivan will do the trick if moving locally or a small low-cost self-loaded U-Haul box if I am moving farther. 

This benefit is particularly useful as a full-time nomadic traveler. I only have a carry-on suitcase because I don’t need many clothes and I don’t want physical souvenirs. So I rarely pay for or deal with checked baggage. My backpack and suitcase are easy to carry on public transportation, up steps, or across bumpy terrain. They are easy to pack and unpack as we move from location to location.

As a minimalist, I easily adapt to the leanly-stocked short-stay accommodations. My apartment in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for example, only has two plates, two spoons, two forks, two wine glasses, two tumblers, etc. My wife and I don’t need more. I am content to wash these few dishes each day and enjoy the calm of the uncluttered space. Minimalism has increased my freedom.

We can easily move our remaining belongings at a moments notice

6. More Kindness to My Heirs

Every possession comes with an IOU. A future debt of time to care for and responsibly dispose of the item. Having a lot fewer possessions greatly reduces the workload shifted to your loved ones when you pass away. It took my wife and I many months to sell, donate, or otherwise responsibly dispose of our household of stuff. During that process we offered many things to our kids and other family members, only to discover that they wanted very little of what we owned. By pairing down our over 17,000 lbs of stuff, we have saved our kids the hard work of disposing of these items. We saved them time figuring out what was truly important in our lives. We also updated our wills and medical directives and let our kids know where our online possessions resided and how to access them. Pairing down now is both a gift to yourself while you are alive and a future gift to your heirs. We never know when our time on Earth will be up.

7. More Kindness to the Planet

In becoming a minimalist, I have realized that I don’t need or want a second (or third) set of dishes, a closet full of rarely worn clothes, or a bevy of decor items. Having less stuff, and using the little stuff I do have for its full useful life, uses fewer of our Earth’s limited resources. If I don’t take something off the store shelf (or purchase items much less frequently), then the company isn’t going to immediately obtain the natural resources and spend the energy to make a replacement item, package it in layers of cardboard and plastics, and refill the shelf space for the next customer. Having less is a gift for the planet, which in turn is a gift to ourselves, our kids, and our neighbors.

8. More Contentment

Minimalism has helped me recognize what is truly enough—enough money, enough stuff, enough commitments. I no longer pursue happiness. According to research, sixty percent of my happiness is out of my control. It is fleeting, and it places too much weight on what I own and do. I don’t need my bed, my food, my workout, or my clothes to make me happy. They just need to do their jobs. Instead, I pursue contentment in my simpler life. Contentment allows room for both the bliss and grief that are part of everyone’s experience. Recent examples in my own life include moments of bliss at my children’s college graduations and grief for my dad’s passing, but still being content. Always pursuing happiness can crowd out sadness, fear, and grief. I have more emotional flexibility and mental clarity when my goal is contentment. I can obtain a fully contented life because I have found enough.

I am enough. 

Minimalism Changed Who I Am.

I used to be a cyclist, gardener, canner, aspiring musician, soccer coach, coin collector, stamp collector, home owner, DIY handyman, and Department of Defense hospitality expert.  

I am no longer those things. I found that by selling, giving away, or otherwise disposing of my guitars, soccer gear, biking gear, coin and stamp collections, work files, house, and many, many, other possessions related to these pursuits, I was freed from the personas that took away my time and focus from the things that I wanted to be and do the most.

In his time management book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkman challenges us to focus on our top priorities. He shares a story attributed to Warren Buffet, in which the billionaire advises us to make a list of our top 25 priorities, then focus on the top 5 only, actively avoiding the remaining 20 items. Those items prevent us from spending the time needed to do our highest priorities very well. 

Burkman himself is not this prescriptive. He explains, “You needn’t embrace the specific practice of listing out your goals (I don’t, personally) to appreciate the underlying point, which is that in a world of too many big rocks, it’s the moderately appealing ones—the fairly interesting job opportunity, the semi-enjoyable friendship—on which a finite life can come to grief.” 

This concept was an eye-opening revelation for me. In order to focus on what I wanted to be and do the most, I needed to eliminate my lower priorities. In my case, that meant retiring my many appealing personas listed above, and focusing on the ones that are core for me: husband, father, friend, traveler, camper/hiker, personal finance coach, and lifelong student. Since one of my top priorities was to travel the world nomadically with just a carry-on and a backpack, I needed to do some major downsizing. I fully embraced minimalism with some surprising results.

But this downsizing is a lot easier said than done. For me, it was a long process. I truly enjoyed learning to play an instrument, gardening, and coaching soccer. To give up the things that went along with those pursuits wasn’t just getting rid of stuff I no longer valued. I was giving up valuable, but lower priority, pursuits that were preventing me from fully doing what I valued the most. 

The hardest things for me to let go of were my electric guitar, amp, and case, the accessories of my dream of learning to play the guitar. I had wanted to play classic rock tunes around a campfire. On two separate occasions, I took weekly lessons for months on end. I practiced a lot, though not enough, since my identity as a musician wasn’t one of my top pursuits (and it had so much competition from my other middling-priority identities). During my second set of lessons, I spent over a $1,000 upgrading my $80 acoustic guitar for a new electric guitar and amp, thinking better equipment would help me learn quicker (it didn’t). I made small progress but not really enough to be satisfying.

After I stopped taking lessons and practicing, the new guitar remained a constant guilty reminder of the time and money I had sunk into learning to play. When I sold my (lightly used) electric guitar, amp, and case back to the music store I bought it from (at a fraction of the price), I felt free! I was giving myself permission to no longer strive to be a musician. I no longer had this physical reminder scolding me “You should practice music. Remember, it is the seventh most important thing you want to accomplish!” It was a conversation with stuff that I didn’t want to have any more. 

The time and money I spent trying to learn to play the guitar took time away from what I really wanted to do—read, travel, learn a language, and take better care of myself. Likewise, by getting rid of my canning equipment, lawn care equipment, tools, old files, old collections, job (I retired early), cars, and house, I released myself from numerous commitments and freed up enormous time and resources. (Asking myself tough questions helped me change my relationship with what I owned).

Because camping is one of my top priorities, I kept my camping gear (tent, sleeping bags, inflatable mattress, and cookware) neatly stored in my friend’s basement near Seattle. These possessions support my top values as each summer I return to the beautiful Pacific Northwest and enjoy weeks of camping among the evergreens. 

Enjoying our camping gear

Each person’s top priorities will likely be much different than mine, and of course top priorities can certainly change over time. When my life of traveling winds down, I may decide to return to a house and gardening or maybe pick up the harmonica.  

It’s a useful exercise to distinguish your most important pursuits from the lower priority pursuits getting in your way. You may decide that learning a musical instrument is your top priority, so you’ll get that dusty guitar out of the basement and give it pride of place (and time and money) in your newly cleaned living space. You might ditch the tent that I decided to keep. The key is to hone in on your own top priorities, keep the few items that help you in those limited pursuits, and discard all the possessions that are part of lower-priority pursuits. 

Having newfound time and resources to focus on world traveling, my relationships, reading, sleeping, stretching, and hiking has been amazing. I have traveled more this year (2024) than any other year. I have read more books this year than any other, including my years in college. I have spent more meaningful hours with my close family and friends than I had before embracing minimalism, because I had a clearer focus on why they were important to me. I walk and hike more than ever. I am constantly learning new things and tackling my foreign language proficiency goal.

I have swapped the elusive pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of contentment because I found that “enough” is fulfilling—enough in what I have, enough in what I do, and enough in who I am.

Doing fewer things better is…better! Removing the physical possessions around these lower-priority identities made it happen. By getting rid of these possessions, I gave myself permission to focus on the core of who I really wanted to be. Minimalism changed who I was.

[This post was republished on the minimalism and simple living website No Sidebar]

Ask Yourself Tough Questions And Let The Answers Change You

[This was first published on the minimalism and lifestyle blog No Sidebar.]

My wife and I sold or gave away 98 percent of our belongings which enabled us to achieve our goal to become full-time nomadic travelers in July 2023. In my pursuit of a simpler life with fewer things, I had to ask myself tough questions. I needed to––I was a self-described “collector of collections” and had a lot of stuff when I started this journey.

Asking myself the popular question about whether something sparked joy didn’t work for me. I found it too easy to confuse any “joy” I felt for a possession with the fleeting enjoyment of a shiny new object––that proverbial “new car smell.” Sometimes I needed to get rid of something even if I really liked it. On the other hand, important possessions I used everyday didn’t spark joy and they didn’t need to. They just needed to do their jobs.

Instead, I found that I needed to ask myself different questions depending on the item in my hands. Six tough questions helped me identify what I wanted to change in myself in relation to what I owned. When I took the time to reach my answer, I changed my relationship with each item, freeing myself to make clear-minded decisions whether to keep or let go.

1. Do my emotions connected to this item exist only because I possess it?

Many of my possessions had sentimental value. For example, love letters from dating my wife 37 years ago, awards I received during my military career, keepsakes given to me from relatives, and a lifetime of collectibles all carried emotional weight. But I found that the feelings were independent of the items––they existed in me. I could feel the achievement of my military career without keeping the physical awards and the nostalgia for dating my wife without all the letters. I found taking a few quality photos helped me detach the emotions from the physical items.

Photo reminder of some hard-to-get coins awarded to me during my military career

2. Do my family and friends really care if I let go of this thing they gave me?

When my wife and I were first married, her parents gave us the family’s upright piano, the one her great-grandmother danced around in delight when her great-grandfather brought it home in the 1930s. As a military family, we moved that 600-pound piece of musical furniture to 14 different houses. It didn’t fit in our lives, but it had the weight of family expectations––we were the keepers of a family heirloom. When we finally gave it away, we didn’t give away our memory of and love for her great-grandmother, and we didn’t lose the love of our family. I discovered that my family and friends weren’t nearly as disappointed (usually not at all) as I believed they would be when I let go of something they had given me. My guilt was self-imposed.

3. If I let go of these excess clothes, do I care if people see me wear the same clothes on a frequent basis?

Subconsciously, I used to care a lot. I let marketing companies and the middle-school fashionistas of my past impact my adult behavior. Once I realized that it was really me enforcing their rules on what I should wear, I freed myself to wear what I wanted––a few functional, durable clothes. My colors are mostly gray (my daughter lovingly calls it my “groutfit”) and I’m sure I look the same in every photo, but my clothes now reflect my values and take up a lot less space.

Wearing my “groutfit” as I travel (Prambanan Temple, Indonesia)

4. Is this possession an investment or an expense?

I held the notion that many of the items I collected over the years were investments and would be worth a lot of money someday. I felt that I had to keep them until I got my perceived value for them. As I downsized, I learned in most cases my possessions were not worth what I thought they were, both in dollars and in my effort to get that money. My stamp collection (couldn’t find a buyer), coin collection (sold most for melt value), Seinfeld DVD set (garage sale price), electric guitar (sold at 40% of retail), autographed Wedgewood vase (gave to charity), Irish Belleek china (garage sale), and more were not worth even close to what was paid for them, and it would take a lot of my valuable time to get more than dimes on the dollar.

5. Can I borrow or rent this item instead of owning it?

I enjoyed collecting a fairly large bookshelf full of books, but came to realize that there are very few books––physical, digital, or audio––that I can’t get from my excellent local public library. When I need them, I can rent tools, a bicycle, a car, and a suit. And if I ever miss the sight of my old collectibles (I haven’t yet), I can visit stamp or coin shops, antique stores, and museums any time and see more wonderful collections than I ever had.

6. How do I handle new items that come to my doorstep?

Once I used the five questions above to let go of all my excess possessions, there was one more important question I needed to maintain my newfound freedom: how do I keep new stuff out? Do I add them to my inventory of items to manage? Having dealt with decades of the “collect-purge-collect-purge” cycle, sustainable change began when I stopped collecting in the first place. I stopped shopping. Oh, I still buy an item like a shirt or shoes when I really need it, but shopping as entertainment is no longer part of my life. I politely let relatives and friends know I value experiences (eating out, visiting a museum, and travel) and consumables (homemade cookies or a bottle of craft gin) over physical possessions. For gifts that I can’t dissuade someone from giving, I find a new home for it and don’t let it become a part of my life.

The answers to my 6 tough questions changed my relationship with the things I owned and was the start of a newfound freedom. I encourage someone starting this journey to find the questions that work best for you. Asking yourself tough questions to identify the underlying internal and external forces behind why you have what you have will help you hone your values and discard items that are not in alignment with those values.

This is a sister post to my post “The Metamorphosis to Becoming A Minimalist“

Decluttering My Mind: Eliminating conversations with my stuff

Before I embraced minimalism, I loved to go camping. In the woods I noticed how quiet my mind was. It wasn’t just bathing in the trees that was calming. I enjoyed not being reminded by my multitude of belongings of the many chores I needed to get done at home. Similarly, when I was in a hotel for a few days, I didn’t have mental conversations with the items in the room. The wallpaper with the lifting seam, the fake floral arrangement that needed dusting, or the floor tiles with the marks were not talking to me. They had someone else to bother. But before minimalism, my stuff at home was not so quiet.

Each time I walked past our silver bowl on our living room bookcase shelf it talked to me. It nagged “You should polish me, I don’t look good tarnished.” and I’d say, “OK, but I’m busy now, maybe next time.” My car would demand “you should wash me” or “change my oil.” My guitar reminded me “You should play me,” or “I will get out of tune and you will lose your callouses that you worked so hard to acquire.” My stamp collection scolded me, “Being packed in this box could damage the stamps.” My canning equipment asked me “When will you can some more jalapeños? Am I just taking up space over here?” 

We owned a similar bowl that begged to be polished
(Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Throughout my house, my stuff was engaging me in “conversations.” Some of them I liked. My favorite book whispered, “you will love the next chapter,” but I told it I’m too busy because I should change the oil in the car, or polish that damn bowl, or play the guitar, or clean the shed, or dust, fix, or organize all of my other things. Most of the conversations I didn’t like. I constantly “should-ed” on myself due to my self-imposed guilt from everything my stuff demanded I do.

Not only did my stuff take up my time and clutter my space, it cluttered my mind with a barrage of “talk.” As I underwent a metamorphosis to become a minimalist and decreased the amount of stuff I owned, I also freed myself from these innumerable mental conversations. It was calming.

By prioritizing what I valued most and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need the guitar in my life, or the canning equipment, or the stamp collection, and I certainly didn’t need the silver bowl. They didn’t support my top values of traveling the world, spending more quality time with family and friends, improving my health, learning a language, and following my curiosity. So I let them go and made physical and mental space to focus on the mental conversations I did want to have. I say yes more often to the books I want to read, yes to visiting the Sahara and Angkor Wat, and yes to more quality time with my mom (my dad passed away last year). 

By following my top values and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need 98% of my belongings (your amount will vary). I spend a lot less time researching, buying, organizing, storing, repairing, cleaning, and disposing of stuff I don’t need. This provides me an enormous amount of time to do what I value. I also have  time to do nothing—to let my mind rest. Our brains need downtime to process all of the inputs that we feed it everyday. Having time to meditate, walk in nature, or just be is crucial to our mental well-being. Now I say yes to my health.

My house is much quieter now. My mind is much quieter now. I am more content.

Five Things Minimalism Is Not

Minimalism changed my life for the better. Minimalism at its core is focusing on what we truly value and eliminating the rest. There is not a definitive number of things a person should own to be a minimalist, and making minimalism a comparison game defeats one of its key purposes. 

While the concept has grown in popularity over the last 15 years or more, I found it difficult to discern the core concepts from the many voices pushing different interpretations. I continually found the term misused, misunderstood, and co-opted to sell us more stuff or get more likes on social media posts.

The following are five habits that do not align with a minimalist life, even though they can be very good at posing as the real thing. They should not be confused with the life-changing power of minimalism.

Stopping just short of hoarding. If someone has a true hoarder in their lives, then a huge number of possessions can appear minimal in comparison. It’s probably obvious, but worth stating: simply not being a hoarder does not make me a minimalist. Getting rid of just enough stuff to avoid being a hoarder does not make me a minimalist. If we feel that we don’t have a problem to solve because hoarding is our comparison point, then we need a new reference point: a home free of everything that isn’t aligned with our values. 

Being great at organizing a lot of stuff. Buying shelving, cabinets, bins, and other “organization” supplies so I can neatly store thousands of pounds of stuff in closets, attics, sheds, furniture, basements, and rented storage does not make me a minimalist, even if my friends tell me my house looks tidy. I used to get that compliment often—I was a master at storage and organization. But that stuff, even if neatly arranged, was a burden on me. I had too much. Storing it neatly wasn’t the answer—getting rid of it was. 

Embracing a “minimalist” designer’s style. Replacing my old stuff with new, sleek, white-palleted decor, or putting pasta, cereal, and dried beans in new matching glass containers that look Instagram-worthy does not make me a minimalist. Buying a designer paperweight from Marie Kando’s online store won’t make me a minimalist (but it will likely spark joy in her wallet). Being a minimalist is not about meticulously arranging my clothes in my closet from biggest to smallest, or by thickness of fabric (as Marie Kando suggests), or any other time-consuming design arrangement. If my effort to arrange my stuff is worthy of a social media post, then I am missing a key point of minimalism—simplicity. 

Decluttering every year. If I need to declutter every year because there is a perpetual influx of new things in my life, then I am not a minimalist. I’m not talking about getting rid of my few worn out or broken items or some gifts from well-meaning relatives—I’m talking about remaining in a cycle of consuming, in which I regularly purge things just to create space for more purchases. For decades, every 6 to 12 months I found myself cleaning out the garage (or the shed, or my closet, or the basement) and driving a car load to donate at the local charity, and every 3-4 years I had a yard sale. Because I had not addressed my problem with collecting more stuff after each purge, I was doomed to repeat the collect-purge cycle. While it always felt great to get rid of that carload or sell that stuff in my yard sale, those purges did not make me a minimalist.

Confusing the allure of newness with my true values. New stuff has an allure (a spark of joy?) that is often confused with our true need to have something which honestly supports our top endeavors. My temporary desire, often fueled by societal pressures, to have the latest cooking gadget or electronics upgrade and the fleeting joy that purchase brings (that proverbial new car smell) should not be confused with truly aligning my possessions with my values.  

All of these habits have one thing in common—continued accumulation of more stuff, regardless of how much we dispose. By separating the minimalism wheat (intentionality and contentment) from the chaff (creating a certain “look” and endless organizing), I hope the benefits of true minimalism will be easier to find.

The Metamorphosis to Becoming a Minimalist

My wife and I sold or gave away 98 percent of our belongings. Our dream to be full-time nomadic travelers took flight in July 2023––a goal we never thought possible until we fully embraced minimalism. 

In her popular book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Marie Kondo is adamant that a successful minimalist life only can be achieved if a person does the decluttering all at once and not a little at a time. My experience was the opposite. 

My metamorphosis from a self-described “collector of collections” to a minimalist took over three years to achieve through several stages. Small incremental reductions of what I owned, in turn, resulted in small but noticeable increases of freedom and control in my life. In fact, it changed who I was. While a caterpillar physically changes, I evolved internally, honing my values and perspectives.

Lucky Lager puzzle bottle caps from the late ’70s — one of my many collections

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, I progressed through four stages to become a minimalist.  

Each stage  motivated me to make further (and often bigger) reductions in possessions and commitments resulting in increased white space and contentment in my life. A virtuous cycle. 

Egg Stage: Start small, but discard enough to notice (and then notice!). 

I started with the low-hanging fruit––I culled my closet, shoes, and some books. I disposed of enough to notice the freed up space. My drawers closed easier, my hangers had elbow room, and my shelves could breathe a little. It felt great and a little freeing to take a car load of boxes and bags to the nearby donation center. 

Noticing how great this felt, I was motivated to do more. I went after our basement and attic storage areas––they were full of large plastic bins and boxes neatly stacked on shelves or in rows (reflecting years of storage management efforts). Again, I didn’t do it all at once, but I culled enough so that the empty boxes, bins, and shelf space after each round would continue to motivate me. 

Decluttering enough to notice — I had spent decades buying bins and shelves to hold more stuff

In this “egg” stage, I passed over the vast majority of my possessions because they either had sentimental value (awards and keepsakes), emotional value (gifts and family heirlooms), functional value (tools, supplies, clothes), perceived rarity (collectibles), or perceived monetary value. At the end of this stage, my past self would have stopped––some culling and a car load or two of donations, creating some temporary space until the clutter returned. But this time I used the momentum from this stage as the start of true change.   

Larvae Stage: Devour knowledge about minimalism and keep iterating.

Before I could tackle the “harder” possessions, I needed to learn more about the benefits of minimalism and gain tried-and-true techniques that worked for me. I read several books and blogs, listened to podcasts, and watched YouTube videos taking in many different perspectives on achieving a better life through minimalism. 

There are many different approaches to minimalism. While I gleaned some valuable ideas from most of them, Fumio Sasaki’s book Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism resonated most with me. This book provides specific techniques for minimizing every type of possession. While I found he went a bit further than I did in my downsizing, I appreciated his thorough approach to the subject.

Finding the right voices that teach and inspire you is an important step in advancing your minimalism skills. I felt stronger knowing there is a supportive community and that I wasn’t alone in wanting the benefits of owning far fewer possessions than most citizens of developed countries.

As I learned new techniques and challenged my mindset, I iteratively returned to my closets, drawers, shelves, and storage with a fresh perspective and continued to make progress.

Pupa Stage: Ask yourself tough questions and let the answers change you.

As I advanced in my pursuit of a simpler life with fewer things, I needed to ask myself tough questions about who I was, what was important to me, how I let external pressures drive my internal decisions, and what were my expectations of the things I owned. 

Asking myself Marie Kondo’s famous question about whether something sparked joy didn’t work for me. I found it too easy to confuse any “joy” I felt for a possession with the fleeting enjoyment of a shiny new object––that proverbial “new car smell.” Sometimes I needed to get rid of something even if I really liked it. On the other hand, important possessions I used everyday didn’t spark joy and they didn’t need to. They just needed to do their jobs. 

Instead, I found that I needed to ask myself different questions depending on the item in my hands. The six tough questions below helped me identify what I wanted to change in myself in relation to what I owned. 

  • Do my emotions connected to this item exist only because I possess it?
  • Do my family and friends really care if I let go of this thing they gave me?
  • If I let go of these excess clothes, do I care if people see me wear the same clothes on a frequent basis?
  • Is this possession an investment or an expense?
  • Can I borrow or rent this item instead of owning it? 
  • How do I handle new items that come to my doorstep?
This photo is all I need to relive the joy of meeting
Warren Miller and watching his ski movies as he narrated them

These questions exposed my underlying beliefs, emotions, and societal pressures I attached (often subconsciously) to my possessions and impeded my ability to let them go. The answers to my 6 tough questions helped me change my relationship with the things I owned, freeing myself to make clear-minded decisions whether to keep or let go, and was the start of a newfound freedom. 

I examine these six questions in more detail in this sister post.

I encourage someone on this journey to find the questions that work best for you. Asking yourself tough questions about your possessions to identify the underlying internal and external forces behind why you have what you have will help you hone your values and discard items that are not in alignment with those values.

Adult Stage: Ready to fly 

I became a minimalist long before I pared down to the amount that I needed to meet my nomadic travel goal. My mindset and values completed their metamorphosis about 8 months before my belongings and commitments reflected that change. 

Getting rid of a lifetime of possessions in a responsible way (selling, recycling, re-homing, donating, etc.) takes a lot of time. 

The upper side of our major “everything-must-go” yard sale

For example, my wife and I culled, scanned, and then disposed of all physical photos except our small wedding album. It took days of hard work, but we are now enjoying the fruits of this labor by having immediate searchable access to over 7,000 photos. We enjoy and share these old photos far more than we ever did when they were stored in albums and boxes in the basement. 

The lower side of our major “everything-must-go” yard sale

It was at this stage where I was able to tackle the hardest downsizing as I had the mental tools and fully understood my values in regards to my possessions. The emotional, sentimental, societal, and other belief barriers were no longer preventing me from taking action. Scanning in our hard copy photos ourselves and taking nicely laid out photos of keepsakes, awards, our kids school artwork, and other emotional and sentimental items (e.g., my bottle cap collection and autographed Warren Miller program) helped ensure I retained a record of the memories that these items represent and why I was keeping them. Looking at these and our other photos helps me reap a bigger memory dividend––the best return on investment we can achieve in life. 

My wife and I completed our downsizing in July 2023, and now we travel the world full-time with a backpack and a carry-on each. My wife Launa shares poignant observations from our travels on her blog at Launa At Large where you can sign up for her thought-provoking electronic postcards. We love our freedom and the calming white space that minimalism has brought to our lives. 

Ready for full-time travel with a carry-on and a backpack
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