Eating is a must

At this point in our adventure, we were starting to see real benefits to living smaller. By now much of our baked goods were coming from our oven, not the bakers oven. Yet our grocery bill was still bigger than we expected it to be. In looking through our receipts we discovered that the raw materials were actually costing more than buying pre-made goods.

Being new to the idea of reducing the size of our lives we thought that we should look at our entire food bill, not just the baking supplies, and see what our options were. One area that stood out to us was the cost of chicken, beef, pork, and fish. Living in a semi-rural area, OK, the area is really rural we just live in a village, it dawned on me that at least one the beef farms just might be willing to sell beef directly to me. A few questions to the neighbors and it turns out I had a very local supply of beef. From my neighbors brother. The farm is 5 miles from my house. Not only was I able to get a killer price, but now I was actually supporting my neighbor.

This was a huge boost. Black angus, from a farm that I could visit to ensure quality, from a neighbor who I knew all while saving money and time at the store. We still had a problem with the baked goods though and couldn't figure out a reasonable way to solve it. Places that could sell quality and quantity wanted minimum buys commitments that we didn't feel we could commit to. Then we went on a car trip for a day at a state park.

There is a large Amish/Mennonite population about an hour from our home. It turns out that there are a number of stores in that area that sell supplies in large quantity without requiring a minimum buy. We bought a 50 lb. bag of flour, a pound of yeast, and a few specialty flours for less than we were spending for a 10 lb bag of flower and 4 oz of yeast at our regular grocery store. For the cost of our regular week supply we were set for a month! Now we make regular trips to the Amish bulk food supply stores and buy in quantity. It isn't uncommon for us to buy 100-150 lbs of flour, 25-50 lbs of high gluten bread flours, 10 lbs chocolate chips, and all our other baking supplies for a quarter in one trip.

At this point we buy meat one time a year (unless we supply others, then we might buy twice). We shop for baking supplies once a quarter. Our weekly shopping consists of fruit, fresh veggies, some paper products (we don't buy these in bulk which I will explain later), products we don't want to, or are unable to make at home and dairy products. And our bill is less than $100/week for a family of four about 60% of that bill is fresh produce. Not great, but right in the range that we targeted.

Clothes, laundry and getting smaller

When we started on looking at ways to make our lives "smaller" one of the things that stood out was laundry. As a family that doesn't own a washer and dryer it is easy to see just how much laundry accumulates. One day as Mrs and I were at the laundry mat, we noticed that there were more clothes per person than days of the week. At some point one of us made the statement

We only have one body and there are only seven days. Why do we need more than eight changes of clothes?

And that is what we have done. For the most part, we only have enough clothing to make it though 7 days. That means eight full changes of clothes.

Of course we have work vs. dress up, and the daughter has her tennis gear. Even with that we do not have closets and dressers full of clothes. This means that we limit the number of times we change our clothes, are careful to avoid staining what we have, and might even "re-ware" a pair of already dirty pants or a shirt if we are just going to be getting dirtier. Because we are more carful our clothes last longer. We use less detergent and water. We do fewer loads of laundry. And we can live in a 100+ year old house with no closets.

Smaller footprint achieved.

Where we started

Everything has a beginning. Living small really began with Mrs and I arguing. We were running late. Why did it take everyone so long to get ready to leave? Considering that I was the one taking the longest I started to look at exactly what happened every morning.

This is where living small starts. By understanding what you are doing, what is going on around you, and what really matters, you can begin to see what is too "big" and work to make it "small".

For me it was clothes. I had too many choices. What shirt matched what pants and which socks for the belt, except the socks didn't match the shirt right. The answer for me has been … wait for it … a uniform.

So I bought 5 casual, brown linen shirts, and 5 pairs of blue jeans. Every day I wore the same thing. Guess what? Out the door in less than 15 minutes for emergencies, but just as fully together as the times when I had hours to prepare. And no one noticed. I did this for a year when I realized that I hadn't bought and new clothes. Not only was I saving time, but I was saving money.

As my career has advanced I have had to adjust my uniform. I have updated to 10 Bill Blass black dress shirts, 10 black undershirts, 6 pairs khaki pants, with 10 pairs matching shorts and socks and a pair of Bostonian Crown Windsor loafers. This is my "every day" uniform. I get up, pick up the next shirt, pants, socks, undergarments and go. Still only 15 minutes from bed to door. I don't run late. And I buy in quantity saving money.

Believe it or not, I am the only one who does this. The rest of the family isn't willing to go this far, but they have made some changes. More on those next time.

Small is not simple is not self-sufficiency.

Small living is my term for a lifestyle that is half way between self-sufficiency and "normal" living in our consumer based society¹. Small living is different than what is called "simple living". Simple living is eliminating everything that you are willing to do without. As close to self-sufficiency as you can stand. Some folks take this to the level of studio sized, off grid homes, and only using human power to get from point to point. Man I wish I could pull that off.

Small living, as we try to practice it, is just looking to reduce our "footprint" in everyday life. We try to reduce dependance on on outside sources. We try to reduce our obligations to only critical things. Sometimes this looks different than you might expect.

Let me give you some examples.

Example 1: We are a family of four. We live in a rural area. I drive 50 miles a day just to get to work and back. Yet we are a one car, no, a one-small car, more like a one-very-small-Chevy-Aveo car family. Why? Less gas. We do things together. We plan trips to store clusters. And the car is cheap.

Example 2: My hand writing is … illegible. Sorry Mrs Williams (my third grade teacher), it didn't stick. This is a problem for me at work. I need to take notes, but I can't read them. So much for my action items! Enter the Pulse Pen. Now I don't need to take notes in the traditional manner. I can replay my surroundings later and make sure I get things done. Oh, and instead of needing 4 pieces of paper each meeting I can get 4 meetings on one piece of paper.

Example 1 is easy to understand. Example 2 is tricky so let me explain.

The amount of effort that I was spending to manage meeting notes was ridiculous. I tried recopying my notes. Asking a peer to take them for me, confirming multiple time, multiple note books, Wide rule, narrow rule, graph paper, pen, pencil, everything I could think of. If I could read the note, the info was out of context. If the info was there I could only make out half of it. BAH!

Now I simply lick on a line on screen and I can HEAR what was being said. A few symbols and I am sure to know where, then the what of the action item. Reduced time load, reduced stress, reduced obligation to peers to verify my notes. Smaller footprint of my life goes into meeting notes.

All this to say, small living is determined by identifying areas that are consuming too much of you, then lessening that areas consumption. Sounds easy. The next post will get into some of the earlier and much simpler areas that have become small for us.

1. I am not suggesting that consumerism is bad or good, right or wrong. That discussion is for a different time.

What is this site about?

Back in 2004 Mrs. and I decided that we needed to live simpler. We were being pulled in many different directions and couldn't keep up. As we started reducing our commitments we began to realize that many of the things we depended on others for were very easy to do for ourselves. We just had to remember how to do them.

At the same time prices began to shoot through the roof. Several years and many thousands of dollars spent remodeling our 19^th century home to increase efficiency was eaten up in price increases by the utility companies (we reduced consumption by 60% and had a 5% increase in month to month cost). As we started looking at reducing dependence on outside sources we started to see an area to keep money "in the bank".

Off like a shot we started with some simple baking ideas. Mrs and I spend a few weeks trying to learn to make good white bread and finding sources for "beef on the hoof". It wasn't until we needed to buy a loaf of bread that we noticed the "quality" impact of our decision. The store loaf was bland, unsatisfying (I think I ate 4 sandwiches), and easy to damage. We looked at the ingredients and realized that we had unconsciously started to eat healthy. That's when we really started to pay attention.

Several years later we find that our family is healthier, happier, and cheaper to manage then we could have imagined. I feel we have made enough mistakes and progress that we can start sharing our experiences with others. So here we are.

I am sure there will some cross over with my philosophy on life but my goal is to keep this site focused on

• Why living small is good
• Why self-sufficiency is not for everyone
• What the mind set needs to be
• What the mind set should not be
• How to get started

That is the goal anyway. Let's see how it goes.