I have a group of stuffed animals that I’ve kept, not because I particularly like them, but because they came from the person who was my best friend from the time we were teenagers until he died unexpectedly a couple of years ago. I look at them, and they remind me of him. They don’t remind me of him because he liked stuffed animals (Honestly, he found them rather silly), but because for several years he ran an import/export business selling Beanie Babies on Ebay, back at a time when they were all the rage and people paid huge amounts of money for various specific animals.… Continue reading
simplify
Simplify Saturday: Cancel Unwanted Magazine Subscriptions
The other day I realized that I get several magazines that I don’t read. They’re interesting magazines, just not interesting enough for me to make it a priority to read them right now. All of these magazine subscriptions came for free so my airline frequent flyer miles wouldn’t expire (isn’t it crazy that you have to order something to keep an account current?).… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Love your Leftovers
We just got back from spending a week with my grandparents. While we were there, we all worked together on meal preparation. One of the ways we simplified cooking for so many people was to declare that each day, we were having leftovers for lunch.
This meant that every day we prepared a big breakfast. My grandmother spoiled us with bacon or sausage and eggs in the morning.… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Wash Towels Less Frequently
The other day I was talking to a friend about laundry. I know, really interesting, right? Actually, it was rather eye opening to me. She was telling me that she feels so overwhelmed by all of the laundry that she needs to do, and when I asked a bit further, one of the things she mentioned was that she washes all of their towels every day.… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Learn to Pack Light
I used to pride myself on being a light packer. I could head on a weekend trip carrying only my regular day-pack backpack (a school-style pack I carried everywhere). I could pack for a month-long trip in a single, carry-on sized suitcase. I could have my bag ready for a trip of almost any length within a half-an-hour for a spontaneous trip.… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Get Rid of Excess Furniture
This may seem like an odd way to simplify. You may look at this post and think, excess furniture, who has excess furniture? But as we’re going through and [very slowly] paring down things in our house, I’ve realized that even in a rather small house, you can have furniture that you don’t use or need.
If you’re not using a piece of furniture, why not pass it along to someone who will use it?… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Meal Planning Master List
Meal planning, especially for your main meal of the day, is a great way to simplify your life. Pre-planning what you’re going to make for this main meal – for us it’s dinner – makes it so you can simply prepare the food instead of also having to figure out what to make when it’s time to cook.
This not only helps evenings to flow smoother by not having to decide what to cook at the last minute (or needing to defrost ingredients quickly), it also helps you to ensure that you have all of the items you need to prepare a particular meal on hand because you knew you were going to make it in advance.… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Organize your Pantry
My toddler has recently decided that pulling everything out of our pantry is really fun. While he typically puts everything back on the shelves, he puts arranges them in his own fashion. This means that over time, our lower shelves are in greater and greater disarray. This disorder is starting to really bother me, as I can no longer be sure of exactly what is on those lower shelves; and every time I open the pantry it reminds me that I need to do something about it.… Continue reading
34 Ways to Reduce Food Waste
The other week, I posted about the huge amount of food that is wasted on a daily basis in the United States (see HERE): almost 40% of our food supply is wasted. While you may not have direct control over what happens on a large farm or within food processing facilities, you can control what happens in your kitchen. Since US consumers throw away roughly 25% of the food they buy, that can add up to huge savings.… Continue reading
Simplify Saturday: Decluttering Kids Clothes
This week I sorted through a ton of kids’ clothes. I sorted through closets. I sorted through drawers. I sorted through boxes and bags of clothes that we have stored. I sorted through a lot of stuff. And, I am now ready to give away a lot of stuff.
What did I pull out to give away? I pulled out all clothes with big holes in them.… Continue reading