Very interesting thread. Like already mentioned "minimalism" means different things to different people. Being 46 years old now I wouldn't consider myself old by any means but my mindset has definetely changed from when I was younger. For some reason when I started my professional career as an industrial mechanic at age 19 (apprentice), I really looked up to some of my co-workers and all of the "stuff" they had acquired and I hoped to have all of that someday. From big homes, boats, motorcycles to race cars and everything in between I thought these guys were living the dream. In my young, impressionable mind I thought the more "stuff" you had the more successful you must be and the happier you must be. Boy was I wrong!!!
I got heavy into drag racing/show cars and sand duning then I had to have a winter sport so we jumped neck deep in snowmobiling and hillclimbing dumping more money and time into all of these activities than I really had, but I worked 40+ hours a week at my full-time job and then another 25+ hours a week in my home shop doing side work to bring in enough money to support my addiction. My shop tool and equipment addiction was as strong as my racing addiction. I was trying to build a tool/equipment collection so that I would have no reason to have to take parts to anyone else and could perform all the work in-house. It was a great plan but I was literally burning the candle at both ends and the whole time thinking I really had the world by the balls. My plan was to pay our home off early then I would have more money to dump into my motorsports addiction. We paid our home off in 2006 but I didn't feel the monkey off my back like I thought I would, probably because money was still going out as fast as it was coming in.
My wife is awesome and never said a word and was always supportive as she could see how much it meant to me to be so involved in all of our motorsports hobbies but I was starting to grow tired of ALWAYS having someone elses vehicles/toys in my shop just so I could do something else to make ours faster/nicer. This perpetual cycle of going to work @ 5:00 am then coming home @ 3:00 pm to work on multiple motorcycles, sand cars, sand quads, snowmobiles, lawn/garden equipment or clients daily drivers until I called it a day around 9:00 pm or later was getting old. I kept this insane pace from 1989 when my wife and I were married until late 2013 when I was ready to snap. My wife, son and I sat down and had a family meeting. My son was getting close to completing his college degree and he made the comment that he doubted he would have much vacation time just starting a career so it was pointless to keep building sand cars and sand quads when he wouldn't have much time to enjoy them. My wife made a comment that she really enjoyed riding our Harleys and hopping in the Jeep and getting off the pavement more than heading to the dunes or track.
We decided right then and there to "de-clutter" our lives and keep one or two activities that we really truly enjoyed. We sold all of our snowmobiles and all related spare parts and engines. Then sold our sand rail and all the sand quads along with spare engines/parts that supported that sport along with all of our dirt bikes and ATV's. I then turned to multiple trailers we had and were paying storage on. I sold our 18' Big Tex car hauler, 24' Wells Cargo enclosed snowmobile trailer. My son and I did a thorough purging of the shop and got rid of anything that we did not use or did not seeing a potential for use in the near future. It was amazing how much "stuff" we were able to sell and get rid of.
Throughout late 2013 and most of 2014 we had rid ourselves of so much I felt like I was selling my soul but I felt I was making the right decision. The amazing thing that I became aware of was that I found so much inner peace in doing so. Don't get me wrong, I do NOT consider myself a "minimalist" by any stretch of the word, I like my vast assortment of tools and equipment along with our RV, Jeep and motorcycles but all of the other things that I thought I needed I found myself not missing one bit. I started seeing things so much clearer and I realized that I no longer had to kill myself working on everyone elses toys or vehicles to pay for hobbies that brought me so much stress and could actually get back to my own stuff and not feel guilty.
My original plan for retirement was to load up our race trailer with our race car hooked up to the coach and travel around the country drag racing. I had been putting money away and my wife and I had planned our retirement and funding around this "dream". One day I woke up and realized that at the pace I was going it would take a couple of lifetimes to earn enough money to do that and the stress of it would probably kill me off early anyways.:-\
A few years back we met a great group of people through an rv forum and my wife and I had a MAJOR epiphany which actually drove our "de-cluttering" decision. Many of these people full-timed and had everything they owned stuffed into a 300-400 square foot RV and were some of the happiest people we had ever met. They didn't hang their happiness on what possessions they had as much as their happiness revolved around spending time with their spouse and friends traveling the country. This completely changed mine and my wife's mindset on what we wanted our retirement to look like. That also trickled down to what we wanted our day to day lives to look like.
Although I am nowhere near ready to give up my home, shop, vehicles and go to the absolute bare necessities, I can honesty say that the last year and a half has been so much more stress free due to the elimination of many of our previous mindsets. I am so much more self aware these days as to what I really need in my life vs. what society tells me that I want or need to be happy. I see things through a different set of eyes when viewing certain advertisements for consumer goods and when I see friends scrambling to buy that next size bigger house because they received a pay increase at work and are then just as stressed if not more than before.
For the first time in my adult life I can get home from work, wash my truck or my Jeep or simply hang out with my son working in the shop on something I want to work on vs. have to work on. I don't feel like I have sacrificed anything, yet have gained an entirely new perspective on life.
Sorry for the long post but this is a great thread and I look forward to hearing of others experiences and thoughts.
Mike.
![IMG_4486[1].JPG](https://www.rme4x4.com/data/attachments/61/61269-ca4cb9e49b517be461ccc9d8c18312d9.jpg "IMG_4486[1].JPG")
