Kindymycin

I find that I tend to spend a lot on just about everything I buy 😅. I have a lot of check boxes for the things I buy, like being ethically sourced, environmentally friendly, fair trade, look for B certified, etc. Consequently, I try not to buy very much. I'm sure I'm probably being taken for a chump with "green washing," but that's on them, not me.

In particular, I find that I spend more on food because I try to buy local and support small producers. I also try to get BIFL items when it comes to tools and things notice that I use frequently.

This perspective sounds like relationships are a transactional affair of reciprocy. I am very sorry if this has been your experience with people ☹️

I find the current tone of the comments in this thread rather upsetting. It feels like a lot of people are arguing to refute OPs position that a person's value is not determined from their material productivity. If this is you, I think you might be in the wrong community. I don't think this is a point of debate in the simple living community.

To say that a person's value is derived from their productivity is to say that you do not value the person, but what they produce. This can be interpreted as viewing a person as a Means to any End, rather than an End in themselves. For me, viewing people as Ends in themselves is a foundational pathos of Simple Living. The idea of valuing people, relationships, love, time, above wealth, material, prestige, speed is what simple living is all about!

Well wishes to you all 😊

Like others have said, try to have a place for everything, but I have a couple of caveats. I have a spouse and two young children, so having a specific spot where everything always goes is not really feasible. I try to restrict things to specific areas, like specific drawers/boxes/containers for it's if a certain kind. This keeps clutter out of sight, and having a policy that every item lives within some kind of container allows me to control how much space I want to allocate to a category of items. For example, my kids love figurines and action figures; they have a box for those type of toys, and once the box gets full, they have to let go of some if they want to get something new.

We also have areas in our house where things are allowed to be "parked," but the parking lot has to be cleared everyday, so that every day begins without clutter/chair. These are mostly our flat surfaces, like the eating table, kitchen counters, coffee table, etc. Part of our nightly routine is to run around for 10 minutes cleaning off these spaces.

Great post and reminder! I find myself sometimes tempted by the trap of seeking simple living/minimalism/environmentalism/general earthiness by doing silly things that aren't practical. Like just the other day I was thinking about getting rid of my awesome Braun razor ive had and loved for years and buying a simple safety razor instead to simply my life more. How silly. There are certainly times when there are actions needed to be taken to align our lives with simple living ideals, but sometimes we can feel a need to continue to search for changes to be made and it becomes a never-ending pursuit. Sometimes the only real change needed is our perspective!!! Just give yourself permission to let life be simple with just how it is.

If you read the article, it tells you that they collect recyclable material, then provide to firms which produce products from the usable material, and the remainder goes to landfills or is incinerated. I think the punchline is that by reducing their waste production and developing a better waste management system, they've been able to clean up their island.

I'm totally with you on the camping chair. I consider it a nonnegotiable luxury. Jetboils are awesome. Could cut some weight by swapping out the bear vault for and Opsak Loksak. I haven't had any problems with critters being attracted since using that and it weighs nothing. I do put that inside a more durable sack and hang up in a tree. Another luxury item I like to take is a hand chainsaw. Very little weight and makes cutting down bigger sticks much easier and safer. Overall sounds like a great setup friend!

For the hiking parts, he likes to roleplay along the way that we're on an adventure to slay a dragon or rescue a lost donkey (not sure where that one came from). when we get to camp I try to involve him in everything like pitching the tent, making the fire, fixing supper and whatnot.

Other than that I just let him work thru and embrace boredom. There's certainly an adjustment for him from normal high stimulation life (we have him in daycare), but after a while he starts settles down and stops asking what time it is or what we're supposed to be doing and starts making up games for us to play, watching ants and beetles do their thing, exploring, poking the fire, throwing rocks in creeks, etc.

I do like to take a few versatile toys, especially when I take my 2 year old as well. They have a lot of fun with a few tennis balls (which are great because they're hard to loose, soft, and never go flat), a handful of my old pokemon figurines, and maybe 2-3 palm sized construction vehicles.

Getting my 5 year old into backpacking, so we're easing into it by visiting state parks locally in North Carolina. So far trips to Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock have gone well, so planning some trips now to my ol stomping grounds in Western Carolina

I use a Synology NAS to back up and sync everything. There's a high up-front cost with this option, but there are a lot of benefits and they have great apps for accessing stuff. The argument can definitely be made that it's more cost effective to just pay for a secure cloud service subscription, but it's nice to self host, plus now I have 16 terabytes of space and can run my own services like bitwarden and Plex for zero cost!

I like how he describes loitering as being the side between being productive and consumptive, just bring ☺️

This sounds awesome I'll look into it! I bet the folks over at the Degoogle Yourself community would like to see this. Not sure how to crosslink though.