7 Benefits of Minimalist Meal Planning for Busy Moms

Finances / Food / Minimalism
minimalist meal planning, minimalist meal plan

Inside: Have you ever heard of applying minimalism to meal planning? There are so many surprising benefits If your family can tolerate eating the same meals over and over again, you will LOVE minimalist meal planning!

Minimalist meal planning is a tool every mom should have in her meal planning toolbox. This method will not work for everyone long-term – not everyone loves to eat the same meals week after week.

But there are events like childbirth, deaths, and moves when you just need to not think about meal planning. Decision fatigue during these times is overwhelmingly high.

You need the ease of take-out without the cost. Minimalist meal planning can help!

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5 Decluttering Questions to Use Instead of “Does It Spark Joy?”

Declutter / Minimalism
the best decluttering questions instead of "does it spark joy?"

Inside: Marie Kondo’s “Does it spark joy?” is far from the best question to use for decluttering. Try these 5 decluttering questions instead, for a better decluttering experience.

The popular book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was my first encounter with decluttering and minimalism. When I heard about it from another blogger, I bought it the same day and read it cover to cover by the end of the next day.

I spent the next week picking up every single object in my house asking the now well-known question, “Does it spark joy?” And I thought that question was helpful…at first.

Bags and bags of donations made the commute from my house to the local thrift store. We gave away other items away to family and friends.

I felt so much better – a huge weight lifted off my chest, until a month later when I realized I had gone a bit overboard in my decluttering purge.

Decluttering regret quickly set in.

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For the Mom Disillusioned by Minimalism: You Need to Remember These 5 Things About Minimalism with Kids

Downsides / Minimalism

Inside: Minimalism with kids looks so different than the picture painted by minimalist bloggers. If you’re feeling disillusioned, you need to remember these five things.

What drew me to minimalism is what draws most moms these days:

  • the promise of a cleaner house
  • the time to do all the things I wanted to do
  • less exhaustion at the end of the day

Minimalism did give me more time and less exhaustion.

But that perfectly clean house? Well, I’m still waiting on that one.

I love Allie Casazza and Joshua Becker and most of the other strong voices in minimalism today. I agree with their message one hundred and ten percent: less stuff will change your life.

However, moms with little kids sometimes hear that message and add on to it, without even realizing it. They also forget that while single minimalists are able to make their own choices about what to get rid of and what to keep, we moms are dealing with multiple, possibly conflicting, voices and opinions.

After hearing gushing testimonials, moms jump into minimalism with unrealistic expectations about what minimalism can (and can’t) do for them.

How do I know? Because I did, too.

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How to Declutter Books and Still Raise Readers

Declutter / Minimalism
how to declutter books for families

Inside: Decluttering books when you have kids gets complicated fast, mostly due to six common concerns parents have about how fewer books will impact their kids. I’ll show you how to declutter books without fear or guilt.

Oh, books. How hard it is to get rid of thee! Next to decluttering sentimental items, I think decluttering books is the most difficult decluttering category ever. Because it is so difficult to declutter books, many people put it off to the very end of their decluttering process.

Not only is it hard to decide what books to keep and what books to give away, the sheer amount of time it takes to go through every single book in your library can be quite extensive! (Most people who struggle with decluttering books are book lovers and have A LOT of books.)

That difficulty multiplies about a hundred times when you have kids. But it’s not impossible!

If I can do it as a homeschooling mom of four (homeschoolers are notorious book hoarders), so can you. I’ll put all your [very normal] parenting fears to rest and give you the questions you need to declutter books with confidence.

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Can You REALLY Make Money Selling Your Clutter?

Declutter / Minimalism
can you earn money selling clutter

Inside: Can you really make money selling your clutter? Perhaps, but probably not the people who could use that extra money the most.

“How to Turn Your Clutter into Cash.”

“7 Surefire Ways to Sell Your Clutter.”

“Easy Ways to Sell Clutter that actually Make Money.”

Each headline is better than the last. Decluttering is now not just stress-relieving and soul-freeing, but it’s profitable.

And maybe it is, if you start from a place of financial independence and excess…or a whole lot of credit cards.

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8 Tips for Decluttering on a Low Income (from a mom who’s been there)

Declutter / Minimalism
decluttering ideas and tips for your home

Inside: Decluttering on a low income has its challenges, but it CAN be done. You just need to do it differently.

Here’s the thing about decluttering on a low income: it’s just different. Every single decluttering post I’ve read is written from a place of excess, and nice excess at that (not the run-down excess that was our clutter).

No one is writing about how to declutter differently when you start from a place of less.

When you aren’t sure you will have enough money for groceries this month, you are going to approach decluttering differently.

I know because I’ve been there.

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How to Build Your Spring Capsule Wardrobe for Less

Minimalism / The Frugal Capsule Wardrobe
spring capsule wardrobe for less

Spring is coming quickly, at least where I live (sorry, New Englanders! May is a loooong way off, I know). Our new city has the craziest weather: one week it’s FREEZING with six inches of snow, and the next week it’s almost 60 degrees.

Those 60 degree weeks got me thinking about my spring clothes sitting in deep storage downstairs. While steady warm weather won’t be here for a while, now is a great time to start thinking about getting out those pieces to prep for your spring capsule wardrobe.

You need to see exactly what you have, so you know what you need to look for now in order to be ready once that steady nice weather hits! Looking early can help you find the best deals to stick to your budget.

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The Thing About Minimalism that You Just Don’t Get

Declutter / Minimalism

“I mean, he’s o.k. with the kitchen counters being clear and stuff, but he is NOT o.k. with us giving all this stuff away. Some of it we only use once a year, but we really need it when we need it, you know?”

I nodded with understanding as my friend shared her recent struggles with decluttering. She’s not the first to struggle with getting rid of items that her family only uses occasionally.

I wrestled with the same questions for a long time:

What about the things we only use occasionally?

Should I get rid of them?

What if we end up needing them later?

Thankfully, a book I read this summer gave me the clarity I needed to answer my friend’s question with confidence.

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Everything You Need to Start Your Paperless Kitchen

Cleaning / Finances / Home / Minimalism / Paperless Kitchen
paperless kitchen products, unpaper towels, going paperless

Inside: What paperless kitchen products do you actually need? This master list of paperless kitchen products will help you get started on the right foot!

Now that you know why a paperless kitchen makes your mom life easier, and the best tips to start your paperless kitchen, it’s time to talk products.

What paperless kitchen products do you actually need?

The only thing on my mind last summer when I got this crazy idea was paper towels. We needed to ditch the paper towels, or at least cut down significantly on the quantity we ripped through every week.

But once I entered the whole new world of green living, I realized that a paperless kitchen was SO MUCH MORE than just unpaper towels. 

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How Minimalism Can HURT Your Budget

Downsides / Finances / Home / Minimalism
a downside to minimalism, minimalist consumer
Inside: Minimalism promises freedom from consumerism. But what should you do if instead of setting you free, minimalism makes it worse?

The kitchen displayed so perfectly in the photos was divine. The clutter-free marble countertops (granite, maybe?), called to me.

I couldn’t help but glance around my own kitchen with dismay. 

The blogger mentioned the few items surrounding her sink, one of which was a simple human soap dispenser. The second I saw it and read what she loved about it, I knew.

I wanted that soap dispenser – two of them, actually: one for dish soap and one for hand soap. They looked both functional and beautiful, something I look for specifically in anything I buy for our home, new or second-hand.

I hopped over to Amazon right away and was SOOOO close to clicking “add to cart”…until I stopped to do the math.

I realized that together, they would cost $30.

Thirty dollars. Not that big a deal, you say.

Well, it is a big deal when that thirty dollars is about half the wiggle room you have in your budget every month.

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