Skip to main content

About

Image
By
Welcome to But Wait There's Less. You've probably guessed what inspired the name.

It starts with the infomercials

It's their catch-phrase. "But wait, there's more" they say, knowing how that lures us in.

Does the "more" bring any extra value. It seems not to matter. We've been conditioned to think that more must be better - so out come the credit cards.

They say it every time because it works every time.

The "more" world

It seems there's no problem for which the answer is not more. Buy more stuff, you need more space. Buy a bigger home, you need more debt. To pay off more debt you need to work more. More income also means more of it goes in tax.

More work means more time away from friends/family. More spent on childcare. More of our life traded away for dollars. More of our life spent complaining about the boss/work we don't like.

Does "more" make us happy?

Often we just have more clutter, more maintenance, more debt, more stress and more worries. Perhaps it's time for a different way.

A life of less

We've reached the point of realising that generally less is better. Less clutter. Less stuff. Paying less for a home. Spending less time at work. Less stress. Sounds good doesn't it?

Who are we?

My name is David. My wife and I discovered just how much stuff we had (way too much) when we got married and combined our apartments into one. How on earth did we accumulate so much stuff?

Jerry Seinfeld is right - it makes senses that the words garage is almost the same as garbage. It's the place we put those things that will be handy "someday" (ie. never).

Our declutter

We discovered joy in decluttering: extra space in the home, the cash from selling unwanted items (grab my free ebook of tips), and the joy of someone else appreciating the item we give them. It's been said that decluttering is getting rid of what you don't want, minimalism is discovering how little you need. That's probably where we are now.

Minimalism

It's not about depriving ourselves, it's about discovering what brings us value. Spending less time and money on things that don't really add value to our lives (even if advertisers insist they do) frees us up to focus on the things that do.

Finance

Recently I've also been sharing what I learn about finance. The better we manage our finances and invest our savings, the less dependent on work we can become. It's amazing the difference that a few small changes can make.

If you'd like to follow our journey, subscribe to my monthly-ish email or follow us on facebook.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to retire on a boat at 40

By
Irish Leonard explains how his family of four lives on a sailboat. No inheritance. No lottery. Just not wasting money - or his time. How does he afford it? He explains by showing the average Irish household expenses, converted into hours worked. Here's the result shown as a working week: We work a lot to pay for our cars. As he puts it: Almost 20% of our working lives is spent so that we can afford to get to our working lives. So Leonard eliminates or massively reduces most expenses. On the family boat, he sails "in a climate that requires no heating or air conditioning, doesn't own a car and generates what energy he needs using solar panels". Remove the unnecessary costs and you remove most of the need to work. He calculates that we can feed and clothe our family on 5 days work per month, or the equivalent. By contrast the average Irish couple devotes 19 hours a day to work, including commuting. Why all this focus on time? In Leonard's words "I...
2 comments
Read more

Big motivator for small living

By
It's been a while between posts here - mainly because we've been moving house. It's been a real motivator for downsizing. Packing each and every item we owned, really makes me wish there were fewer of them. Moving everything from the old apartment to the new one made me envious of those people who live in a "tiny house on wheels". For them moving house simply means towing it to a new location. No packing required. The whole process has reaffirmed our commitment to owning less stuff. So we're going to be intentional about downsizing. It will be an ongoing activity. My environmental heart couldn't stomach a spontaneous dumping of things into the garbage, but it's also more fun this way. Selling things online brings in some handy pocket money. Giving items away is also a great community activity, whether it is to friends and family, to charity or to people in the neighbourhood. I'm looking forward to it as a lifestyle rather than a task to do....
Post a Comment
Read more

Offline

By
Yes, by now we all know that smartphones and social media are doing us harm. How do we harness the benefits of them without the destructive effects. The book Offline makes 5 main points. If you've only got a minute, here they are: The addictive design keeps us on online platforms longer. The 'brain hacks' disrupt our brain's ability to function. Humans need "real" interaction, and social media does not deliver this. Technoference (digital over-riding direct interactions at the play ground, coffee shop, dinner table) result in something valuable being lost. Speed of the transformation is astounding. 75% of people are connected, with almost half using social media. We have no idea what the long-term effects of this real-life experiment will be. Going a bit deeper, here are some of my highlights from the book. So what are side-effects? According to various studies, the effects can be grouped into the physiological (poor sleep, neural re-wiring, and increased str...
Post a Comment
Read more