I live at college and you'd be surprised (or not) at the amount of possessions many students bring with them. Although at times I've used other people's things I have never brought to college, in my 4 years: a tv, computer, stereo, mp3 player, microwave or dvd player. Right now all that I have aside from the essential bedding and necessites (books, clothes etc.) is a refrigerator, an alarm clock/radio and a discman. I do have a cell phone, however, and if I were to downsize more I think I'd get rid of that. Oh yeah, and I have two bikes and no car at school.

For me, living simply is about not spending extra money on gadgets and toys. It's bad enough how much debt college brings you into. The idea that has always kept my interest in cycling is that it can be an alternative to a car and a viable source of savings for many people. Especially in Mass, where insurance is very expensive.

Well not wanting to haul a bunch of stuff home on my bicycle keeps clutter down.

Simple, My work provides a meal, shower, and uniform washing. I don't own the following, Bed, TV, kids, a motor, pets, and still don't practice a religon, drink alcohol, and smoke tabacco. I do cut my own hair FXjohn, rent, has a garden (planting season), and slowly getting rid of things I don't use.

**EDiTED**

Wow, you sound like REAL intersting guy.
I guess the last item you part with will be your Hair Shirt.

Although I am *far* from where you are, I admire your discipline. I live with another, and that imediately complicates things, as I don't wish to control my Significant's lifestyle. However, I find myself enjoying the hobby of 'purging' as I call it ... which is basically getting rid of things, but more so the clutter in my head. I am very careful what sort of sentimental or emotional pull/push an object gives me, so, I'm in the process, everyday, of simplifying and downsizing, and that goes way beyond material things, into my psyche.

Thanks for bringing it up!
~jen

simple
 

Even living simply can become a complex obession.

I lived simple for many years, but now I'm going in the opposite direction, I have a $40,000 Tahoe( great for hauling bikes and gear), and 2 Jettas. My direct TV bill is over $100 a month, mortgage is over $2000 a month,electric bill over $250 on a good month, Internet bill over $50 a month( high speed for gaming) 3 computers, building another one for you guessed it, gaming! 3 TV's all hooked up to Direct TV. Gas for cars is about $800 a month, oh yeah food about $600 a month, all the different insurance,alot! Plus 2 XM subscriptions, 1 Myfi and one in the Tahoe. Wifes SIRIUS subscription.
Vacations every year cost over $4000 and the list goes on and on, but dam I love being comfortable!

my simple-est living that i have done:
own about 7 set (pants,shirt, etc) of clothes, a few books for college, a computer, a cellphone, a backpack, beding stuff and maybe some other small stuff i forgot... no bikes, cars, etc

but about living simple and having fewer stuff... i think simple living is relative... i dream about owning a mountain, beach, etc as a back yard so i can just walk out and look at the sun set...
(cant I be simple and yet greedy.. :p )

Simple is relative, I think. Our life (my wife and I) is simple: no car, no debt, one bedroom apartment. We don't lack anything I can think of.

Except a sailboat. I need a sailboat.

Jim

A boat is a hole in the water you throw money in.:D

It can be. :)

Living on a small sailboat is actually pretty cheap. I did it for several years on SF Bay.

Jim

Yeah I have known people have done it.

nothing more i can really add to this thread, just my own 2 cents i guess, living simply and being independent of material things defintaly has its rewards i will share a little life experience ive had

between the ages of 15-21 i was hooked up pretty bad with drugs, any and all money i would get went straight to getting high, while living with my parents this was really no big deal since all my basic needs got met, but when i left at age 18 to go to college this posed a prob. i never really had much money, i would get a job long enough for my first paychk then spend it all on drugs....little bit for food here and there. by the age of 19-20 i was hanging with the way wrong crowd and got mixed up with crack, needless to say withina cpl months i either pawned/sold/traded literally everything i had also i lost my place to stay and ended up living on the streets...i even sold my jimi hendrix shirt of my back for 10 dollars. fast forward, one yr/i was facing poss jail time for some stuff and i started going to narcotics annoynomous meetings. i got cleaned up/got a place/job. started buying everything, lived in a way big house, 2 cars bigscreen tv, stereo yadda yadda, thought that these things would make me happy. it took me awhile but i eventually realized that these types of things does not equel happiness, i slowly got rid of alot of excess things, sold one of my cars, moved into a really small apt that didnt permit a big screen tv etc etc. what i found out was that without all these material distractions it made staying home kinda boring. i started getting outside more, hangin out with friends more and i found more construs=ctive things to do...camping..backpackin..caving...etc etc. i am now almost 28 yrs old. have been clean for 7 yrs. i do enjoy having a few really nice things but not alot. my computer is one of them, a coffe table my wife and i bought here in okinawa, and a few other things. i dont own a couch/ we sit on the floor. i dont own a huge expensive bed/ we sleep on futon mats. we dont even have cable tv...ppl look at us very wierd with that. i im not a religous person really but even if you look at all the diff types of organized religion they all agree that living simply will free you spritualy. ok im done for now

You raise a good point though about the religious aspect of simplicity. I think there is a very strong notion in current thought that physical simplicity translates into emotional and spiritual well being. Just take a look at the iPod ad campaign. Everything appears stripped down and very basic. The people don't even have faces, only shadows. Whether or not people consciously/subconsciously think this translates into spirituality is anyone's guess, but it sure seems that way sometimes.

Yep par'n away the the stuff. Using it up and not replacing it. It has to be gradual otherwise my pack-rat spouse bolts and re-loads the boat.

I think this thread needs some pictures of your rooms/houses so we can see what you define as simply.

http://www.beaulieu.co.uk/beaulieupa.../daffodils.jpg

;)

heres a link to pics of our house in okinawa
http://flickr.com/photos/ststephen65...7594375736207/

i almost made a mistake.......man the wife and i have been trying to become more self reliant and simplistic, we have been downsizing and trying to get out of debt so what do me almost do today?? we went to the store to buy some blank DVDs, we pass all the flat LCD high def televisions and see a sign for 1 yr same as cash with a 9% interest aftewords and we where like wow that would be nice so we where like "lets just look" well looking wound up picking out a 42 inch 1,500 dollar tv. went thru the whole financing process, got aproved, and the sales attandent walked away to finish up some paperwork and reality hit us..."WHAT THE HECK ARE WE DOING"? we quicly discussed was this a need? def not!! is this going in the direction we are trying to go in by simplifying our lives? def not!! so when the sales clerk came back we politely apologized and thanked him for his time and we walked away. THANK GOD!!
so we asked ourselves...how did we get ourselves to that point? went in for some blank dvds and almost walked out with a 1500 dollar TV. it was a close call....anyone else out there have occasianal lapses in judgement? times of weakness?

Congrats you dodged the bullet this time. It is hard to distinguish between what I call false needs and real needs. One distinction I make is between long-term and short-term happiness. A new TV will make you happy for a little while, but after the novelty wears off it'll be just one more thing cluttering up your life. Even worse, it might even become a source of unhappiness--especially when you're making payments every month on what has become "just a thing." The ability to think ahead is what makes us rational beings, and usually happier beings too.

SO true

Well....just sold our TV today, now all we have is a 19in computer moniter. trying to fig out what to get rid of next. here is a link to the inside of my house here in okinawa. pretty basic if you ask me....
http://flickr.com/photos/ststephen65...7594375736207/

O yea let me invite the whole world into my house give me a break.

Houseboat
http://www.duckin.com/listings/fallo...s/01lead_b.jpg

[QUOTE=wheel]O yea let me invite the whole world into my house give me a break.

thanks

I recently got rid of the computer I had in my dorm room and man what a difference. It almost looks like I got ride of a couch or chair it makes such a difference.

Oh, so it is all about the SPACE a computer takes up..LOL..That IS a SIMPLE way of looking at it.

Hi, new to the forum.

I'm in my late twenties, and I'm leaving a high-paid corporate computer job to start my own business doing the same thing.

I still have a car because the commute situation necessitates it. I made an earnest effort to use public transportation here in Dallas. But, it takes three hours by train/bus to do a 25-minute car drive up the tollway from North of downtown (where I live) to very, very "suburban" Plano (where my office is).

In a couple of weeks I'm leaving Dallas and moving to central Austin. There, I'll live easy biking distance from everything. I won't need to drive, since if I absolutely need to see a client they'll fly me or I can rent a car. Pretty much the whole business can be run from my laptop. My iPod makes a dandy data backup device, as does internet-based protected storage.

I live in a 600 square foot place; an unrestored pre-WWII building. My place in Austin will be very similar, but with a small yard for a clothesline and vegetable garden. (I'm vegetarian but not vegan). People always comment on how sparse it is, already, but I'd like to have even less stuff.

The main thing standing in my way of simplification is that I'm a musician/DJ, with thousands of vinyl records, a small tuba, a nice mini-studio, a PA system, and a few nice guitars. I'm also into rock climbing and camping -- but fortunately a lot of that stuff can do double duty around the house.

I'm Christian, too -- in fact I spent several years teaching a youth Sunday School class at a rural Southern Baptist church in the Houston area. I think that the example of Jesus definitely pointed towards simplicity and peacefulness, not being a rich war supporter in an Escalade. I'm looking seriously at the Quaker church at the moment.

People always ask if I'm Buddhist, though. (I don't blame people for thinking Christians are dirtbags since so many "religious" people seem to care about gay marriage and abortion, but not about our planet, Darfur, racism, etc...) I think that many in the "younger generation" of Christians feel the way I do about things, however.

$0.01,
rs

I would gladly give away the TV, but we'd probably have a rebellion from the kids, who sometimes spend a little too much time watching videos, although we do try to discourage that. However, our single TV is very small and in a cabinet with doors, and the color has been on the fritz for a while now. We do NOT have cable, nor even a good antenna, so that really limits the non-video viewing. I have no desire at all to go HDTV or large-screen.

I do sometimes miss be able to watch interesting stuff like public television or informative cable channels, like nature or history, but then that would take time. Once you break the viewing habit, your life does get filled up with other stuff, which helps keep you from lapsing. (Although lack of opportunity is even better.)

I'm holding off getting a cell phone as long as possible, although my wife has one. Primarily in case one of the kids gets sick at school and has to come home, since she works out of the home but is out and about a lot.

I mow the lawn with a human-powered reel mower, rake the leaves, and shovel the snow.

simple living has many diff meanings to many ppl. for me it has a cpl diff meanings. one is the less distractions i have, the more i can concentrate on what life really is and be more aware of the things and ppl around me. i do have a tv but its unplugged and in storage untill i can find someone to buy it. i can say that i really do miss watching tv sometimes but its been so long now without it i dont put much thought into it. i guess the most distracting thing i have is my computer. but for me the computer is more of a tool then a source of entertainment. although the wife and i still use it now and again to watch videos, and i do alot of online music trading thru it as well. its funny tho, when i go to a friends house with a tv and they have it on i find it really hard not to watch it like the whole time im there lol.
the other thing about simple living to me is the less i have the less time i need to spend at work making money to afford those things thus giving me more time to spend with family and persuing other interests.

I have an abacus and a unicycle, i think 2 wheels is excessive. I seldom fornicate with others as i only wash when it rains, and find that a good wank is far more energy efficient. I live on nuts and berries and only watch tv through a neighbors open window, and definitely never pay tv, dvd's or videos. I think that i am truly alternative and making a difference/ statement etc...but my friends all know that i am totally establishment and only do all this becasue i have the option at any stage not to...bah humbug hahaha