Hello from Minnesota

[starr80]

Hello everyone. I live in MN. It's nice to find such a forum!
Are any of you into the simple living practices out of necessity, instead of only by choice?

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Starr, Nice to have you here! Yes we live Simple Living out of necessity. We don't have children, I cannot work so we have to make my husband's salary stretch as far as it can go. We live in NJ where the cost of living is high. Taxes are VERY high! SLF is a great place to get ideas on how to save more. The frugal thread that they have every month is a great place to look and see how others are being frugal...chris

[razz]

:welcome:

SL started by necessity for me to see if I could retire and was so successful that now it is more of a choice but maintaining the SL practices.

[SteveinMN]

Hello, Starr! Welcome to the forum, which has a surprisingly-large Minnesota contingent (including me).

My wife and I always have leaned toward the simple. Neither one of us has ever been impressed by "stuff" or complicated lifestyles. Simple living, though, came to the fore when I burned out in my computer software job almost two years ago and felt the need to do something very different (which was not likely to pay me what I had been earning).

I must say this group was instrumental in helping me lay out a path toward being able to leave my job a year and a half ago -- and in keeping at it. As a result, the photography business I had planned to run after leaving IT has been competing (somewhat unsuccessfully) with full retirement. I would not have thought it was possible to live as well or better than we did while missing so much income, but with some persistence and perspective, it's happening.

I'm looking forward to learning more about your experiences in simple living.

[Jilly]

Started out as a choice, but everything I learned is helping me now that I have few resources. Do you think that the reason makes a difference?

[starr80]

Thank you everyone for your replies!
I was just seeking to meet some like-minded people. :)

[fidgiegirl]

Welcome, starr80. What would you say is your area of interest within the broad field that is "simple living?" How did you come to be interested yourself?

Looking forward to getting to know you.

[starr80]

Hi Kelli! Thank you for your message. My interest is self-sufficiency.

[SnakeBlitz33]

Hi Starr80!

I recently came to these forums looking for exactly that - self sufficiency. One of the biggest hurdles for many people wanting to live the simple life is to give up "things." Things that you don't want or need, to declutter and give up. To keep the necessities and be thankful for every single thing you own then. Getting rid of unnecessary services or things that you could do yourself, as well as switching hobbies from something expensive to something more frugal. Another hurdle which a lot of people (even me!) is to become completely debt free.

With so many people in the world and only so much time to do things, being completely self sufficient might be a little difficult these days. Maybe sit down and define for yourself exactly what the simple life means to you and how self sufficient you want to be. Write down what your short term and long term goals are to give you a sense of direction.

[starr80]

Hi SnakeBlitz!
thank you for your msg.
I'm almost in the self-sufficient stage.
I was just looking for like-minded people.

[danna]

Welcome starr80...you will certainly find like minded people here.
Again welcome.

[starr80]

Welcome starr80...you will certainly find like minded people here.
Again welcome.

Thank you so much, Danna!