minimalism / frugality FAIL

Let's play a game of Simon Says, as answered by the minimalist in me, and the frugal chick in me.

Simon says: I want bread.

The minimalist's response:	The frugal chick's response:

Simon says: I want a vacation.

The minimalist's response:	The frugal chick's response:

Simon says: I want a manicure.

The minimalist's response:	The frugal chick's response:

Joanna's stomach says: I want yogurt. Every day.

Joanna's wallet says: 

 

$23 yogurt maker, pays for itself in five weeks.

The more I read simple living blogs, the more domestically bipolar I become. I can pay money to have other people make stuff for me so that I don't have to own gadgets and machines and pans and bottles and potions. Or I can own the made-in-China-with-slave-labor contraptions that allow me to make my own gosh darn yogurt and stop throwing out ten plastic containers a week. 

Our cabinets in our tiny kitchen are full with all of the contraptions we have to make practically all of our own food (though I draw the line at milling my own flour). I'll have to get rid of some mugs or something for this to fit. 

My internal frugal compass and my minimalist conscience are at war. I own a good bit of stuff (particularly in the kitchen) just because it lets me be frugal. Where do you draw the line?

Losing my (minimalist) religion

http://walternaeslund.com/

Y'know, minimalism is tiring! Look at everything you have to do:

• find stuff to get rid of without getting injured by the things that fall on you from your closet
• get yourself emotionally unattached to each item even though the thought of sending a plate to the trash makes you want to run screaming from the minimalism blogosphere
• don't buy new stuff for your home even if you just bought a place and suddenly everything needs to be fixed and my, do I ever want a faucet filter because DC water tastes like something died in it
• don't buy new stuff as therapy even though you've been doing this for years and you're beginning to wonder if Starbucks coffee really is less addictive than Macy's
• keep blogging about it even as other bloggers get so tired of for-profit minimalism that they quit and you have little left to read that doesn't scream "buy my e-book!"

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging recently. If you've ever asked yourself the question, "what would I do with my life if I won the lottery?" you'll know the feeling. Once you've gotten past the desires for the material stuff, how would you fill your time if you didn't have to work? 

I made my list and lo and behold, blogging was pretty far down. So I took some time off to start some things I really did feel passionate about. I contemplated quitting blogging. And after two weeks of not making a serious decluttering/minimalism post, you know what? 

My condo was a *lot* more messy. 

Blogging is therapy for me. It's profit-making for some, attention-getting for others. I wanted to go down the profit and attention roads for a while. But I'm never going to make money off of the blog and honestly I shouldn't need to. I don't need the attention from 100 or 1000 readers as much as I need the accountability of the few followers I do have. 

Most of us won't make money or get popular by having blogs. But we will have neater houses. That has to be enough for me.

So...you may see some changes. I may post less often, I may combine multiple reckonings into single posts because they take a long time to write and I'm about 200 items behind! I may focus more on myself and what I haven't learned than on general decluttering tips that I've already internalized. 

For those of you that are listening, thanks. You keep me honest and that means a lot to me.