One of the most significant changes from a land-based life to cruising will be moving into approximately 100 square feet of living space aboard Kaleo. Fortunately the backyard will be the size of an ocean.
This week we made a significant decision that will help us better prepare for the move aboard and more importantly, help us rightsize our life. We are moving from our 1,400 square foot town home to a 650 square foot studio apartment.
We’re betting that life will be just fine with less. Less to distract, less to clean, less to maintain, less to worry about. And most importantly “less” will allow us to focus on the “mores” in life. More time together, more chances to experience the world, more money to help others, more focus on the joys of life.
Here are a few tips we’re learning in our rightsizing adventure:
- Have a friend or family member help you. They don’t have the emotional attachment or remember the price you paid for something that you never use.
- Make a deadline (moving helps that) in which you have to reduce the stuff in your home by 30%.
- Start treating space as a commodity rather than your things.
- Before you buy something, decide where it will go. Loving it in the store doesn’t usually translate to loving it three years later when it’s stored in an overcrowded closet.
- Shop your living space. Would you re-buy that chair? That lamp or rug? If not, it might be time to release it and not replace it.
This process may sting a little now but we believe this intermediate step will be an easier adjustment than going from 1400 to 100 at once. Gotta get back to packing and Craiglisting.
Great ideas for rightsizing your living space. One other idea that’s worked for us in preparing to liveaboard was to invest in renting a storage unit. Start putting things in it. Then have a policy like “anything in storage that hasn’t been used in X months” gets sold.
Having one huge garage sale seems really daunting, and people get attached to their stuff. But we’ve found that once stuff is out of sight in the storage unit, it really is out of mind and easier to get rid of.
Cheers,
– Ari of S/V Macha
Great idea! We’re anxious to sell our home that’s for sale and start getting rid of things. We feel that these “things” are just that, and living life and memories are what’s important. Unfortunately, society teaches us to feel validated by what we have, not by how we’re living life. We’ll feel so free once we rid ourselves of all the “stuff”.
Good for you guys!
For us it has been like a snowball effect; the more we get rid of the more we realize we can live without, and you start to appreciate the things that you do have even more.