How To Downsize But Still Keep The Simple Pleasures

To prepare yourself for living in a limited space, you must downsize. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t keep a few special belongings.

Downsizing is so hard. Especially if you live in a large house. I have a dog, whom I need to crate. Not to mention food, water dish, dog food, treats, and toys. I run a business that requires me to have space to make things & the materials to make said things, which isn’t easy when you need to downsize the number of things you own.

The Box Method

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this but this is something I have done and I love it. I went to Walmart and bought a “Small Box” that measures for each room in my apartment (there are only 3 rooms so this is super easy). At the beginning of the month, you set up your boxes and put them in that room. Everything that you touch for the first 30 days goes into the box. Anything not in the box at the end of the 30 days is tossed out. Things that you use daily, you’ll just pull out of the box and then put it back in. If you find that you don’t have enough room in your box you can try it again with a bigger box but I really don’t recommend that. I would recommend going through and seeing how often you actually used something and decide if you can go without it or find something that does double-duty.

What To Keep & What To Toss In Your Bathroom

I like to start small, so I started in the bathroom. For me, I basically try to keep it to a toiletry kit + towels. Beyond that, I have a small hairdryer and a small curling iron, a tiny amount of makeup, a few hair ties, and then I have contacts and my contact solution. That’s all my bathroom stuff. It takes up only a fraction of the box.

And no, you cannot put items from another room into the bathroom box if one is overflowing and the bathroom box isn’t.

Downsizing Your Closet

This seems to be the hardest for everyone and I am not sure why. I try to keep my clothes to a minimum by just staying out of the stores and adopting the “one in one out” method; wherein if I buy a shirt, I have to donate a shirt.

When you are first starting out in getting rid of your excess and downsizing to a minimal amount of clothing an easy way to do it is this 7 x 7. There are 7 days in a week so you need 7 of everything except accessories (like hats, scarves, bags, wallets, etc) shoes, and outerwear.

• Tank Top
• T-shirt
• Sweater
• Dress
• Skirt
• Shorts
• Pants
• Bra
• Socks
• Underwear

However, with this method, things really add up. If you have 7 of the previous you end up with 70 articles of clothing and that’s really too much. Think about it rationally. You definitely need underwear and if you’re a woman maybe a bra. I skip it some days because I’m small chested but have opted to wear only bralets, which fold down flatter than normal bras.

If you’re in mostly warm weather and can wear sandals, you don’t need as many pairs of socks. You also might not need pants or sweaters but you’ll probably want at least one pair of long pants and a hoodie in case it gets cold.

If you’re like me and are an all-weather kind of person, space saver bags that roll up (no vacuum needed) are amazing for keeping your off-season clothing compressed and tucked away until needed. Especially a puffy winter coat!

Here is what is in my closet, broken down into Summer and Winter. I also put how many I keep of each item next to it just for giggles.

Summer

• Tank Top (3)
• Dress (3)
• Skirt (2 – 1 short, one long)
• Shorts (3 – they are cloth and are for around the van)
• Rain Jacket (1)
• Jean Jacket (1)
• Slip-on Sandals (1)

Winter

• Winter Coat (1 – I also have 1 scarf, 1 pair of gloves, and 1 hat)
• Sweater (3)
• Thermal Legging/ Sweater for extreme colds (1 pair)
• Long PJ Pants (3)

All Year Round

• Hoodie (1)
• T-shirt (3)
• Pants (5)
• Bra (7)
• Socks (7 – 3 lightweight, 5 warm boot socks for winter)
• Underwear (14 – I have to have 2 weeks worth of underwear its an OCD thing)
• Tennis Shoe (1 pair)
• Doc Martens (see below)

Exceptions

Camper Vanlife means being going minimalist, which is hard if you are sentimental like me. I still have a few simple pleasures or things that I have to keep despite limited space. So here is a few things I kept:

1. My Docs (Doc Martens) – they were a present from my ex. I removed most things related to him, however, these are too pretty. Not to mention, Doc’s are expensive. I can’t afford to replace them so I am keeping them. I get lots of compliments on them and I just can’t seem to get myself to let go. Even to downsize!
2. Books – I must have a few books around. I am weird but I love the smell and I need to have a few books around. I still have a bunch of eBooks on my iPad but there is still something about running your fingers over the spine of a hardcover book of poems (which is what I kept).
3. My Rock collection – I collect rocks from various places (you can see some of them in my post about Gemworld). These tie in nicely with my next item.
4. Religious items – I am Pagan and identify as a Witch. I keep a Book of Shadows and a few items like herbs, rocks, and other reference books tied to my religious beliefs and they fit nicely in this little chest. That way if someone takes a tour it’s not blatantly obvious that I practice.

During Covid I moved into an apartment – so I gained more things that I didn’t exactly need but downsizing a second time has been easier.

So, who else has downsized? What did you keep that are considered luxury space-taking items or as I call them, simple pleasures?