My Journey Towards Minimalism
These are scary words for me... My Journey Towards Minimalism. I've struggled with Bipolar most of my life, material goods have helped me through a lot of that. Buying things to make me happy... the only thing is, I am not happy. That takes a lot to say, I am not happy. Things in my life make me smile, but my overall mental well being would most definitely fall under the Not Happy category.
So I've tried this journey before, but I've never honestly tried. I feel that to become happy I must try. I must do my absolute best try. I don't know where this journey will take me or honestly if it will last, but if I can even take the steps to begin to a happier life, to begin to rid my life of zoning out on the computer while watching hours and hours of television with not a better thing to do.
So where does one start? Where does one begin when picking up the majority of their life and rid of it? I started with money... No, no, not to rid my life life of money, that is still a necessity. But no, I will not be ridding myself of money. What I did do with money instead was beginning to save it. This is something that I have also struggled with my entire life. Money tends to burn a hole in my pocket, not a good thing when you're nearly 26 and actually trying to begin a real life without as much stress.
I want to be happy, one of the biggest ways I can see myself happy in the future is by traveling, a passion that I've always had but never had the money to be able to do. By ending my spending habits I can look forward to be able to do this. Traveling is important and as I once read 'you don't have a passion for something if you continue to make excuses on why you can't do it'. I don't want excuses, I was experiences.
So currently I am working on the '52 Week Money Challenge' where you save money based upon the week that you are in. i.e. Week 1 you save $1.00 and Week 52 you save $52.00. So this is cool and an easy way to do it. At least as of right now it is, but I've only saved $6.00 so we'll watch the journey through the next 49 weeks. By the end of 52 weeks I should have saved $1,378.00, that is good news. I've made a whole chart that also adds things up on if I save anything extra. So during these first few months will be the best time for me do that. My overall goal is to begin saving at least $50 a month in addition to what I am saving with the 52 Week Money Challenge. That's an extra $600 in a year, getting me close to $2000 a year, which would be good. That is where I want to be.
My next step which is the biggest step for me is to get rid of clothes that I don't wear. This is always a struggle for me, so I may try The 333 Challenge. I will post more on this once I begin that journey. Hopefully soon. If you have any tips or tricks to make this journey a better one, please let me know.