My New Purse and Wallet Combined, a Lanyard, Downsizing Continues . . .

I'm guessing I was a teenager when I first started carrying a purse with a wallet. Now, 30 years later in my forties, I gave up my purse & wallet carrying ways and downsized to a lanyard.

It cracks me up to think of the hundreds of dollars, or more, I spent on purses and wallets over the past 30 years. And now to only have a lanyard with a key chain, it holds everything I need (bankcard, marina gate key-card, license, library card, museum card, boat insurance card, co-op card, and a grocery rewards card), it is the exact opposite of social expectations I was used to.

In our society, women are expected to carry a purse & wallet, and men carry a wallet. This is just how it is. Retailers advertise this in various repetitive ways. When I was a shopper I used to go to the local department store and drool over the new line of purses with matching wallets. It was like these were toys we had to have to be cool and look good. The logo was everything, and if it began with certain letters that meant you were socially higher and probably more economically stable and richer than others. Ironically, as I experienced myself and watched others do, the people who had these purses with logos where not economically stable or socially higher or richer. We got stuck in a trap, suckered into over-spending to show a certain fake facade to others. Billions of us did it, and we made some people very rich.

I sort of climbed this mountain throughout the past 30 years, lets call it Mt. Social Norms. I started at the bottom not exactly sure if I was gonna make it to the top, because after all only certain people made it there and had the nice things. I got to the foothills of this mountain it was foggy, I got lost and confused, incurred some debt. I kept going higher and higher, the bills stacked up, then altitude got me and I passed out. When I awoke there were billions of others laying next to me, and only a few made it to the top of Mt. Social Norms. Those that made it came down to us and told us don't bother trying to get up there because we weren't the right kind of person, and they already took their stake in it and to just go back down to the bottom. Upset at this we stayed there in that high altitude area, determined to prove them wrong, every now and then passing out dazed and confused from those high altitudes. In time, some just left, but others they stayed and are still trying.

For me, I got too sick of that mountain and headed down fast. And I never looked back because it felt so good to be away from it. They can have that stinking mountain because I prefer to be a happy outcast, rather than a miserable climber pushed down by society.

Now when I leave the boat or car I sometimes want to reach for my purse, it is habit; or when I leave some place I am looking for my purse. Then I look down and find relief because it is hanging on my neck, phew! I cannot believe how easy it is to carry only a few items of importance and have them hanging on your neck. Maybe it's not the most expensive, or prettiest, or socially acceptable, but it works for me.

Final week in our house, get rid of it!

So this last week was like a marathon. We had a lot left over to get rid of and then we had more than we thought we actually had.

We posted our fridge for sale and got several responses that we had to divert until our last days. Then no one responded to our posting of our stove or washer and dryer. Finally, the last days we had interested people and they came quickly and bought them. It happened so fast. Eventually we had no appliances and lived a couple days in a bare house. 

Our garage sale brought in some money, we were glad we did that. Money in exchange for people taking away our stuff, can't beat that.

The day after our garage sale ended we packed up our stuff in the back of truck and left the house for good, to the boat. We got to the boat and all was good, after 4 weeks of being gone we were worried there may be some issues inside. But we were pleasantly surprised when we found her as we left her.

The cushions were first things unpacked and they went in nicely. Then we unpacked the food and kitchen items, and our clothes and bedding. Now we have no room on the boat. Our galley and vbirth are full of stuff, so we have to rethink what we really need. 

And the cat and dog are transitioning nicely. The first couple nights so far they get up in the middle of the night, waking us up causing us some sleep issues. Neither have fallen in the water or tried to escape, so that is good.

Next step is to get rid of more stuff, UGH!  

Living arrangements in our 2000 sq ft house

Our house is 2000 sq ft.  There are two stories.  Upstairs we have 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room; downstairs (our basement) we have 2 larger bedrooms, bathroom, and laundry room. And we have our backyard, with a one car garage and attached room where our pets stay. We are moving onto a boat that is less than 300 sq ft, and no garage. Needless to say we have much change to go from 2000 sq ft to 300 sq ft.

Right now we are living upstairs, and using our basement to clean and store our sails, make projects like cushions for boat, and a play room for the kids. Our dining room is converted to our get rid of room, things we either know we are getting rid of or we are not sure what to do with. Our kitchen is really bare, we emptied most of our cabinets, and have only a stove, fridge, and child table in there. Our living room now consists of foam to lay on, boxes, couple lawn chairs, a tv, and a couple end tables. Our bedrooms each contain air mattresses, clothes, and toys. We keep going through the toys, bedding, and clothes; we have to whittle down to very minimal clothes, toys, and bedding. I keep thinking to myself I only need what is necessary a few sweaters or pants, and to let go of those things I have kept for years because I may or may not fit into them again. There is still much to downsize, however, we have gotten rid of so much already it is amazing.

It seems like we have been downsizing and selling our stuff for years. In reality, I think its been almost a year we've been doing this. And finally, we are getting to the hard stuff - our pictures, paintings, and other memorabilia things. Sometimes it is so hard to go through that stuff and figure out what to do, and other days I just easily do it. Thank goodness we have had many months to do this, I feel like it has been a blessing to be allowed to go through each box, drawer, cabinet and decide to keep or get rid of. Then go through the keep pile again and decide again to keep or get rid of. We almost feel right now to just get rid of everything left over because we are so tired of deciding what to keep, and we really don't want to have a cluttered boat. And we have to move soon, so we now have to be fastidious.

Our relatives think we are weird cause we live in a house that is bare and we are getting rid of everything. Well these are some tough decisions we have had to make, and we will keep making them and plugging along. We cannot wait until we leave this big house. I cannot imagine I am saying this because years ago I had to have a big house. I cannot imagine also that I have accumulated this stuff all these years, just moving from one house to the next, what a waste of time, energy, and money to keep all this stuff.

Oh, what a change of mind we've had!!

More downsizing

We managed to sell our living room furniture, upon return from purchasing our boat. Now we are using lawn chairs and foam to lay on. There is still so much more to go, we have collected so much stuff over the years. We just keep plugging away selling and donating our stuff. And scan away all our pictures and next all our documents, that'll be a huge job. I'm still persuading my hubby we need an adf scanner for that job.

Cleaning sails is a chore.  The sails for this 32 ft boat are huge compared to our previous smaller 26 ft boat. The drifter was easy to clean, a fragile nylon fabric, we had to be pretty careful with the cleaner and the way we did it.  Now it looks nice, smells good, and is in need of some patch work. The main, jib, genoa, and staysail are big and in need of more cleaning and repair. We've tried to get the rusty stains out of the genoa with not much luck, and used just about every chemical we could find. Unfortunately, none of them worked, but that big old sail looks somewhat cleaner.

Finish the rebuild on the car is still going on while we are downsizing and fixing this boat. It makes me tired just thinking about all what needs to be done to finish this car, but once it is done we will be so happy.

Play! Well we would like to do more of this, however, we are so busy with all these projects our heads are spinning. For the kids, we do try to get some play time in.  Seems like we are way more busy now with out a full-time job, except we don't have all the crazy stress of the job, and we get to hang out and enjoy each other. This was the whole purpose of changing our lives!