Garden And Gossip Forums

I picked up a book last week titled " Living the Simple Life: A Guide to Scaling down and enjoying more" by Elaine St. James. 

Thought you might like to hear some of the suggestions!
1. Work less hours or work from home or stop working completely. The Author gave up her job and now churns out multiple books with very similar titles to earn a crust.
2. Downsize your home. Move to somewhere smaller so you have less to look after.
3. Sell most of your possessions because they won't fit into your smaller home. 
4. Get rid of all your books and use the library.
5. Get rid of your house plants as they take so much time watering etc. (She didn't say anything about having a garden. Maybe that's in another book.)
6. Eat the same meals every week so you have the same shopping list. 
7. Buy 7 identical pairs of socks and, once worn, put them in a wash bag. You'll never lose a sock again and you don't need to pair them up as they're identical.
8. Don't have friends over for meals - then you can reduce the amount of crockery and cutlery etc that you need.
9. Turn your phone onto answer machine and ignore it when it rings. You can then listen to the recorded message and ring back at a time when the caller will also have their answer machine on. That way you don't waste time on the phone.

I can't remember all the wonderful suggestions she had for "scaling down" but I'm not sure that "enjoying more" would be the end result.

1, agree with.
2, if it suits you at the time, then yeah do it.
3, no
4, no and what library
5, no
6,how boring would that be!
7, it has it’s merits
8, even I’m not that unsociable
9, very rarely talk to anyone on the phone anyway.

I think I’ve read enough of her book, to know I don’t want to read anymore. 

Not a fan of many of those ideas, although atm a smaller garden appeals. No need for 7, I wear odd socks all the time, who sees 'em?

Too complicated!

So basically she's suggesting the life of a hermit? Get rid of all but necessary possessions, try not to see or talk to people.
I'd also like to know how many house plants she had pre this way of life that the watering was taking her so long?

I don’t really fancy any of those, we did once think about downsizing but we’re happy here.

(25-06-2023, 04:54 PM)Bren Wrote: [ -> ]I don’t really fancy any of those, we did once think about downsizing  but we’re happy here.

I have a friend who lives in a tiny home and I did think about buying one myself. Then I thought, sod it, I am a bit of a hoarder of books etc. and I am reasonably happy where I am at.

Sane Bren. We have recently viewed a house which is far more practical for our needs, the other house is lovely, decorated to our tastes (they have our light fittings and the same artist on the wall just for a start), much closer to kids school, far more storage in more practical places, less work to upkeep, more than enough outside space, etc.
We decided not to move because we much prefer the outlook from our house and being less overlooked.

(25-06-2023, 05:13 PM)Jimny14 Wrote: [ -> ]Sane Bren. We have recently viewed a house which is far more practical for our needs, the other house is lovely, decorated to our tastes (they have our light fittings and the same artist on the wall just for a start), much closer to kids school, far more storage in more practical places, less work to upkeep, more than enough outside space, etc.
We decided not to move because we much prefer the outlook from our house and being less overlooked.

Both of those traits are vital, more so than many others. We bought our house eons ago based on the view, the garden, the privacy.  Unfortunately the house itself is nothing to write home about but the other three make up for it.

Location, location - as they say. We moved from a mid 30s 3 bed detached to an almost identical mid 30s 3 bed detached because of its location - across the road from the woods where we walked the dogs (and cats!). That was 40 years ago and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. True, I don't use all the rooms but where else could I store my clutter? If I got rid of that, maybe some rooms would be superfluous but I don[t see that happening soon.