Lifestyle

So my last post went into a detailed diatribe of certain things we’ve done to change our eating habits. A lot of those changes have been gradual and some more difficult than others. But those diet changes aren’t the only things we’ve done. We have also tried recently to make some lifestyle changes as well. Here are a few of the things we are doing and have done to change the way we live.

1. We are trying to simplify.

This is a pretty broad category, I know, but we are really trying to live more responsibly within our means as well as with a global outlook. That global outlook does play out a lot in our food, but it does play out in our possessions as well. We’ve cut WAY back on buying things….all things…any things. The last time we bought clothes was about 4 months ago when Seth and I needed new jeans. We each bought one pair. We’ve also gone through our closets about 2 times since we’ve lived here (about 10 months) and have each time donated bags and bags of clothes to our church and to goodwill. At the moment, I am down to about half of a normal size closet and a small ikea dresser (2 big drawers, 2 littles). This is a FEAT of clothingdom for me! Seriously. I used to be a clothes lover. I would go to Old Navy, my drug of choice, probably once a month just to see what’s new, which translated to, “Hey! What can I buy this trip!”. The odd thing is that since pairing down my own wardrobe, I find choosing my outfits to be WAY easier. Like TOTES easier. I know exactly what I have, what looks good, and what I want to wear. Badda bing, badda boom. Done and done.

We’ve also really tried to simplify our possessions. Those of you who are friends with us on Facebook know that we are selling our DVD collection. All 350 of them. I just got tired of seeing them, storing them, etcetera-ing them. So that was my Christmas gift from Seth was to slowly sell of our DVD’s. It’s been actually a fun adventure to see who buys what and how fast certain movies go, etc. It’s a social experiment, really. It’s also been quite crazy, as someone pointed out at small group last night, to think about how much money we spent on buying all those DVD’s. Granted – it was over a long span of time and I got really good at shopping for them (Hello Black Friday Sales!!) but still. So instead, we’re selling them all in order to help pay off my graduate school loans. Good cause right? Buy my DVD’s to send me to school! 🙂

When our roommate Becky moved in, we also did a HUGE kitchen purge of all small appliances, gadgets, extra stuff that we just don’t use anymore. I plan on doing another one when I am finished with school this coming summer. I also plan on systematically going through books the same way we have DVD’s. There are some that I never read anymore, so why not sell them or give them away to people who might? That will most-likely happen this coming fall as well. After that – who knows what we’ll purge next, but I am sure it will be something.

A lot of my personal thoughts on possessions, consumerism, buying-power and the like have come from a guy named Dave who did the 100 Thing Challenge where he lived with 100 personal items for a year. Yes, including clothes, personal hygiene, and even his wedding ring he counted as an item! You can find out more about how he did it, his list of 100 items and what it taught him here.

2. We’ve changed our personal hygiene routines!

Speaking of personal hygiene, that’s another thing that’s changed as well, for both me and the hubs. We haven’t used regular shampoo or conditioner in at least 6 months and we’re going on a month for the deodorant ax as well. For shampoo – we are using a mix of baking soda and water, and conditioner is a white vinegar (or apple cider vinegar) rise. It’s been REALLY good. It took about 2 weeks for my hair to get used to it, but now, I can seriously wash my hair like 2 times a week (sometimes even 1) without it looking gross….at least no one’s told me it’s gross. In fact, I think I’ve gotten more compliments on my hair now than I had before! Even my wonderful hair stylist said it looked really good and healthy!

So the deodorant is actually a mix of baking soda, cornstarch and coconut oil. We mixed them all together and make a paste like thing and packed it in our previous deodorant holders to apply it. Others I know just apply it with their fingers like a lotion. I love the deodorant too. No one has told me I stink so far and Seth has had the same experience. He’s much more of a sweat-er than me, so if no one smells him, that’s good!

3. We clean differently!

There’s been a shift in our house cleaning too. As you can probably tell – we own stock in sodium bicarbonate…affectionately known as baking soda. Not only do we use it in shampoo and deodorant, but I use it to clean about everything in the house (as well as baking too!). It cleans the shower, the toilet, the dishes, the counter, the fridge, my face (make a paste and instant facewash) and many more. We also own gallons of white vinegar. That’s “conditioner” but I also add it to the clothes in the wash (it makes them softer when line drying and acts as a more natural bleaching agent), add it to baking soda for a deeper clean in the toilet, takes out odors everywhere, and is just so cool. We also go through a LOT of apple cider vinegar here too – for our hair, drinking for our digestive system, and most recently for making clay face masks!

So yes – we’ve downsized our possessions and changed the way we treat our bodies and our home. Surprisingly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I feel like there is so much more we could be doing, but a lot of that is being put on the back-burner while I finish up grad school (which I should be working on now, but I am hoping and praying blogging gets me in the paper-writing mode). Once that’s done and I can focus more on working and home-life more consistently, I am sure another wave of lifestyle changes will take place. All these changes have been better for our home, ourselves and our wallets! We’ve essentially cut out our budget for toiletries and selling DVD’s has been pretty lucrative so far! It’s all part of how we’ve chosen to live, and even though didn’t start out as a financial endeavor, it has certainly helped that area. Being able to cut things from our budget completely, like toiletries gives us the chance to make that money count somewhere else! In the words of Dave Ramsey, “We’re living like no one else so soon we can live like no one else!”