Two good friends recently tasked me with finding them a new home to buy. I love finding friends homes. The consequences are high, because you don’t want to let your friends down, but I love the challenge. Besides, hanging out with friends and looking at homes is far more fun than it is actual work.

There’s a common logic amongst most of us that we look for the house that stretches us to the absolute maximum of what we are able to afford. The best home our money can buy. We started looking at options, and along the way, the objective became clear that they were looking to downsize, in order to live bond free. This was quite a refreshing challenge.

Their mission reminded me of a documentary I watched a while back, called Minimalism which I promised to put her onto. I went home and found it on Netflix (you can watch it in multiple places, just click here to see your options ) and before I knew it was engrossed for the second time. But this time it really hit home.

Some highlights/profound moments were as follows:

• to find a way to live well, within an easy to earn income
• work less, experience more
• to only have things that you actually use or you get value from
• to minimize the stuff that fills up our lives

Another great source of inspiration if you like where I’m going here is “How to live Morgage free with Sarah Beeny” also on Netflix, great ideas and innovative ways to avoid choking to death on huge monthly bond costs.

A serious self-audit was coming.

I decided to scrutinize the following areas of my life, financial,  material and space.

Space is what I currently need to live and how I use it. It’s a verified statistic that the majority of people only use 40% of their home. With the dining room being the most wasted space in the majority of homes. What are my wasted spaces and how can I make positive changes?

Material is the stuff that fills my space, what am I actually using? what is adding value and what is just pure hoarding? This is going to be a big one!

Financial. Something that has completely stunned me in recent years is how expensive my life is. Yet every time I look at my budget, I cannot find a way to cut back! I am going to take a good look at my expenses and I’ll be honest about the results!

So that is my 3 part project I’m working on. I’ll post each individually and show you the before and after results. I’m writing this so that I can’t chicken out and not do it.

Peace, love and less nonsense.

S.