But wait... there's less!

I like Christmas, but it's a little bit ruined by advertising that keeps telling us to spend more. This is one of the bluntest - it straight out says that the path to happiness is spending. Of course, more accurate (but less grammatical) slogans would be: the more the stressier the more the costlier the more the debtier the more the exhaustinger (from shopping) the more the wastier (of food and unwanted gifts) But of course it's not the shops' job to tell the truth. Their job is selling. Perhaps it's our job to realise that it's nonsense and to focus on what really makes Christmas merry. If you'd like your Christmas to be more about love and giving than about shopping and credit cards, why not grab my free Christmas Resource . It's got 5 websites to help your Christmas have less stuff and more joy. Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

I'm not the first person to suggest that we shouldn't give gifts to adults (they just result in stress and waste) but I can give you an example of why. The mid-way birth-day Midway between my wife's birthday and mine, my sister gives us a combined gift. That's a good idea - to cut present stress by half. So what was it? As gifts go it was a reasonable thought. My wife and I enjoy board games and the TV series Doctor Who, so the Doctor Who version of Monopoly seemed like a good gift idea. Except that another friend had the exact same idea. Now we have two of the same game. What to do with the extra gift? A gift is meant to be an enjoyable experience for the receiver, but here's what happened: We thought of re-gifting it, but can't think of anyone who's a big fan of both Doctor Who and Monopoly. We decided to sell it online. At least that way my sister won't have completely wasted her money. So far three people have contacted us but none have fol...

A friend shared this on social media. My first reaction was "of course you can". I do that every weekend. I work Wednesday to Friday. So Monday and Tuesday are my 'second weekend'. Sadly though, not all employers offer 3-day-a-week jobs. And it is sad. Sub-consciously we realise that we are spending a lot of time working and not so much time enjoying the benefits of that work. As a result we start to resent the work that we do (even though it's our chosen line of work) because it takes up so much of our time. Sometimes the standard weekend is barely enough to recuperate from a stressful week and catch up on household chores and then it's back to work again. We hunger for more time to actually live life and enjoy it. So how can we do it? 1. Hope that employers realise this great opportunity. Offering a diversity of work options can help them compete for the best employees. Working 3 days per week is also more productive . 2. Team up. Where I us...

October is Buy Nothing New Month , and that's their slogan: Shop Less. Live More. This quote about consumption is doubly true. There's the hours we spend to earn the money to spend. Then there's the hours bustling around shopping centres and malls searching out the thing we want (or that advertising has told us we want). Of course there's also the issue of where we put all this stuff we buy. Do we just buy a bigger house (with a bigger mortgage) or do we put it in storage? "The Japanese may have tidiness but in America we have storage lockers - our only growth industry." - Marge Simpson . I found these stats about the US storage industry . I find it such a waste that after spending so much to buy all this stuff we then spend another $22 billion to store it. Shocking. Clearly we need to be less addicted to purchasing. Buy Nothing New Month is a great way to start. Are you with me?

Do you feel like you have too much stuff? Is your home full of things you never use? Would you like to swap them for cash? We did My wife and I have sold more than 550 items online as we downsize and we've learnt a bit along the way. I've put some of our best tips into this handy ebook. I hope you can use these tips so you too can have less clutter and more cash. Enter your email address below to receive the book for free. Less Clutter More Cash Get my new ebook for free. PS. This will subscribe to the But Wait There's Less email list, so you'll know when the new updated version of the book is available. You can unsubscribe at any time.

As we downsize i'm finding some things I'd half-forgotten I own. Like this retro Casio handheld computer game. I decided to sell it - especially as it turns out they are a bit of a collector's item. I mentioned this to a computer-game-loving friend of mine. He suggested I hold on to it for "investment value but also because it's cool to have old stuff like this" but also said to put it online if I "really need the space". That last bit got me thinking. It's not really about the space - the game's only the size of a mobile phone. We have sold more than 200 items now, so I guess the space adds up. But the amount of space wasn't a big driving factor. The famous Kon Mari method says to give away things that doesn't bring you joy. I think I would adjust that slightly. This game still brings me a little joy. I play it for a minute or two every couple of years when I stumble across it - often when looking for something else in that dr...

My wife and I have sold more than 200 items online as we've been downsizing. We've made a fair bit of cash, and also learnt a thing or two along the way. I've put some of our tips in a small ebook. In the spirit of downsizing and less-is-more I've kept my cover design fairly simple. Which one do you prefer and why? Let me know in the comments. The ebook it will be a free download to those subscribed to But Wait There's Less . Update: The book is now available .

Now it seems that advertising doesn't even have to make sense. This vending machine at my local shopping centre has the slogan "let life surprise you". I guess it's aimed at people who find their life predictable and would like more spontaneity. But where's the surprise? A person puts money in and selects a drink. That drink comes out and the correct amount of change is returned. Still no surprise. Perhaps the slogan might be valid if your selection had no impact on the random drink dispensed. Or if every third customer got all their money refunded. Or if the vending machine was replaced with a children's lucky-dip. But as it stands it is far from a surprise. It's perhaps the most predictable activity you might do all day. Perhaps if people are looking for spontaneity and excitement they'd do better to spend less time in shopping centres and more time doing things that bring happiness . Also, don't bother paying $3.50 for fizzy drink j...

This meme came up on my wife's facebook feed. I'm not retired and I do have a job. I work 3 days a week and have Mondays off. It's a long weekend every weekend. And that's a good reason to be happy on Monday! PS. It's "winter" here in Brisbane and today is sunny and 26°C (79 F).

Why do we give birthday gifts? Surely it's to bring joy to the birthday person. So what would they enjoy? Often it's not a physical present. Often it's our physical presence. Today is my sister-in-law's birthday. She wasn't at all keen to have a party like last year's milestone birthday. Instead she suggested a simple bike ride along the river leading to a brunch at a riverside restaurant. She seemed to really enjoy the day. And why not? A pleasant bike ride alongside the river on a gorgeous day followed by a delicious brunch - all in the company of people close to her. That's the kind of thing we really enjoy. It's not the kind of thing you get at a shop. It's not the kind of things that fills up your house, but it is the kind of thing that fills your heart. PS. I don't often take photos of food, but I tried to capture the joy of a mid-morning Eggs Benedict by the waterfront. In the moment I ate most of it before even thinking of a photo.

The apartment we live in is currently for sale. The owners are asking $429,000. The floor area is 76 square metres. (US readers: 818 sq.ft) With those numbers, a buyer is paying $5,645 for each square metre. (US readers $524/sq.ft) In those terms, it seems really expensive. So many things that just aren't worth the space they take up. The bookcase is not the worst, but at 90cm wide and 30cm deep, it takes up 0.27m 2 (3 sq.ft). Either way, that's $1,573 worth of space. I gets scarier when that maths is applied to a spare bedroom. It reminds me of the book Less is More . Kim says that in the old days items were more expensive but space (housing) was cheap. So it made sense to hoard things back then. But now it's the other way around. Generally items are cheap to repurchase (if we ever need to) but the space to store them is costly. These days it makes more sense to be selective about what we hold on to. In Australia there's a lot of talk at the moment about h...

Part of the reason we have so much stuff, or throw away so much stuff, is because we buy too much stuff. A big part of that is the constant advertising messages we are hit with throughout the day. I saw this one recently. In the bottom of a shopping basket. Is there no space free from advertising? OK, this is probably been happening for some time, but I generally avoid the two major supermarket chains. PS. One of the extra advantages of working 3 days per week is moving grocery shopping to a weekday. It is so quick and hassle-free with hardly anyone there.

What do you do when you have 80 pens? Help save someone's life. Most times we give away an item we feel we're helping someone. Even selling an item does the buyer a favour by providing what they need at a bargain price. But this was a step above. At a local church, lawyers and other volunteers help refugees seeking safety in Australia. They have a mountain of government paperwork to do to demonstrate who they are and the serious danger they face in their home country. Recently they needed more stationery supplies for the paperwork and applications. It was a great chance for us to declutter our stationery and help people in real need. I was surprised to find we had at least three staplers and 80 pens. Almost half the pens no longer worked - either broken or had dried up while waiting to be used.. We have much less now - but probably still more than we will ever use in our lifetime.

According to research by Gumtree, the average Australian household has $5,200 of unwanted goods sitting around the home. Why not cash it in? I'm sure we'd all much prefer to have a few thousand dollars rather than all that clutter we no longer use. So far we've made over $1,630 We didn't have many valuable items - just a fridge and a lounge suite. Most of the cash came from lots of little items (around 170 of them) for 2, 5 or 10 dollars. It all adds up - to a surprisingly high amount.

May 1-7 is Screen-Free Week . It's about spending time away from the screen and more time with each other - or doing things we love. It's a great chance to break the work-tired-watchTV-ads-shop-work cycle. This list of twenty alternative ideas is great for screen-free week. It's also a great reminder of things we could enjoy if we're shopping and spending less - and maybe working less and enjoying life more.

They were in a few different places so we didn't realise until today that we had 22 towels. That seems a lot for two people. So we had a cut session. It's a bit like the sports coach who has to pick the final team from a squad of players. In that spirit, we picked our final line-up of 4 bath towels, 2 guest towels, 4 beach towels and one guest beach towel. As I write this, even 11 sounds like a lot. But we're making progress. Also, we know of someone in need who could use a towel or two - so that's also a great incentive to lighten our load. PS. As I wrote this I assumed that 22 was an unusually large number for two people. It just seemed big. Perhaps it's normal. What do you think? How many do you have?

I do 3 days of paid work per week. I find it to be a good balance between earning some income and having free time to do the things I enjoy. Today I discovered another advantage. An average 5-day worker pays around 18% tax. An average 3-day worker pays just 9%. Here's why. The more you earn the more tax you pay. Here in Australia we pay no tax on the first $18,200. But after that each chunk of money is taxed at higher rates. Tax-free Mondays Think of it this way. The average wage is $231 a day. Working just one day per week, that would be tax-free. Work a second day and you lose $20 in tax. By the time you get to a 4th or 5th day the tax (on those days) is about a third of what you earn. I think this is partly why some new parents work fewer days. After paying all that tax and then childcare fees, it's just not worth their time to do a fourth or fifth day - because their true wage is hardly anything on those 4th and 5th days. The same goes for people who just have ot...

We buy way more stuff than we need. Advertising plays a big role in that. I reckon they're quite tricky, and sometimes more than a bit manipulative, in getting us to buy more stuff. So I was stunned to see these survey results on Planet America . Only 1 in 9 Americans trust Census data while the majority are happy to swallow what they are told in an advertisement. That should, at least, be the other way around. By definition advertisers have every reason to give a biased view of the whatever it is they are advertising. I'm struggling to think of any information source LESS trustworthy than an ad. What do you think? How would you rank these information sources?

This is every mug I own. How many did I buy? Zero. They seem to just appear. I don't even drink tea or coffee. In winter I have might have a hot chocolate or cocoa. So 9 mugs seems like a lot. How does this happen? I reckon most mugs are gifts. There are two reasons for this. 1. It's a safe bet. People need to drink. It's kind of like buying your dad socks for father's day. But the difference is that socks wear out and need replacing. Cups don't. One of these mugs i received as a kid in the 90s. It still works fine. Now it has 8 friends. 2. It's often for what's on the mug. It might be a greeting card-style message, or a sports team logo, or something humorous. It's a good thing that something functional can also provide an inspiring message or pleasant memory as you use it. But the problem comes when we have too much. If I use the cup my sister gave me at Christmas, then I'm not using the 'awesome brother' one she already gave m...

My wife and I currently work about 3 days per week. Even just typing that feels like a rebellious act in a society that herds us towards five days a week of work. My wife was recently doing one of those "graduate outcomes" surveys that the university arranges. It asked how much she works. When the answer was less than 5 days, it asked if she was looking for more work. She said no and was asked to choose one of the following reasons. They thought up 10 options and not one was even close to "this is how much I want to work". Each option was just a variation of 'There's no work for me' or 'I have no time'. It's as if they couldn't even imagine a person who doesn't long to hand over even more of their life to work. I reckon that surveys like this, and about a hundred other things, herd/lure/peer-pressure us into working 5 days per week even though there's no real reason to.

One of the reasons we work so many hours and buty so much stuff is the constant message from advertisers that money can buy things that make us happy. But is that really true at all? There's probably more than 50, but this list is a good reminder that so many really valuable things can't be bought.

On Saturday night I saw British comic Josh Widdicombe's comedy routine which included this bit about parental gifts: My parents go on holiday and they bring me back gifts of their holiday that I haven't been on. I've got a key ring from Morocco so that every time I get my keys out I can go "Oh yeah - I haven't been to Morocco". My parents came back from York. They brought me a collectible teaspoon. Who is collecting teaspoons from places around the UK? On Sunday I saw my Dad who has recently been on a cruise. Sure enough there was a keyring from a place we haven't been - along with half a dozen other items. It's great that he thinks of us while he's travelling and wants to get us something. It's nice. But these cruise gifts, combined with Christmas and birthday presents, make it hard to downsize. I now have to get rid of 7 other items just to get back to even. Sometimes it would be way better just to see a photo.

On the weekend I spoke with two separate people - both about to sell their current home (after less than a year living there) and who may be making a loss on the deal. I think sometimes we rush into buying a home. It's a huge status symbol. "They own their own home" is often used as an expression of someone who has 'made it'. I reckon that attitude is costing us. It lures people into buying when the probably shouldn't. Adam Conover, from Adam Ruins Everything devotes an episode to housing. This snippet is on renting versus buying. Later in the episode he also mentions the hidden costs buyers often forget or underestimate. He also covers the first rule of investment - diversification - not putting all your financial eggs in one basket. One of the experts on the show suggests 3 things to ask before buying. Can I afford it? Do I have 20% deposit? Will I live here 10 years? You can find Adam's sources on his site. The full episode is on SBS for...

I saw this message online. I think it sums up where I am at. Sometimes it's hard to sell / giveaway / recycle items we don't really need anymore. Psychologically we often like things just because they're ours. If they were someone else's we wouldn't want them, but their ours so we hold on tight. I recently gave away a bunch of books to a charity booksale. I had once enjoyed the books, but these days they'd become clutter and I get more joy from knowing someone else will enjoy them. As a side bonus, next time we move (which may be part of living the life we want) it'll be much easier without all the extra stuff we don't need.

Having everything we thought we wanted isn't making us happier. It's bad for the planet. It's cluttering up our homes. It's making us feel 'stuffocated' and stressed - and it might even be killing us. Reading that on the back cover of Stuffocation: Living More with Less immediately grabbed me. But this is not just about stating the problem. The back cover continues... With intriguing insights on psychology, economics and culture, Stuffocation is a vital manifesto for change. It has inspired those who have read it to be happier and healthier, and to live more, with less The book is in basically four parts. Part one outlines stuffocation and its harmful effects on our health and happiness. Part two looks at how we got 'stuffocated' - the start of the 20th century materialistic culture. In part three we get into the here-and-now. The author looks at 3 different alternatives to materialism and stuffocation - with real examples. Minimalism In a way this ...

As we downsize, we often ask "Why do we even have this in the first place?" or "Why do we have so much stuff?" This video gives an insight into who advertisers make us buy stuff - even if we don't need or want it. "Advertisers are like crappy friends. They make us fell needy, ugly and uncool. But we keep them around anyway."

How often do you feel like this? For me it was particularly we we moved house last year.

Today I'm doing some post-Christmas tidying up. Here's what I do with Christmas cards. Saving space Recently we've been going through all our cards. We scan those that are meaningful or sentimental. For me that's almost all of them. But that's OK. Even at a decent resolution I could probably get a lifetime of cards onto a single USB. Digital is such a space saver. Upcycling new cards / gift tags An easy way to avoid both waste and needless consumption is re-use and upcycling. Many Christmas cards have writing only on the right hand side (or page 3 as I call it). These are easy to scan. Cut the card along the fold line and you can scan the card front and the message in one scan. It also makes the card front into a blank postcard. These can be used as Christmas cards or gift tags for next year. If you're into a bit of arts and craft, they can also become home-made decorations.