meet JENNIFER
“Life isn’t all that difficult, people just tend to make it harder on themselves without even realizing it”
This right here is what my dad had said in one of our many conversations that we had when I was a lot younger. This statement has stuck with me for the last couple of years and has really changed the way I think and live my every day life. We all go through life making decisions, whether it be with our own judgement or with the input of others, that we feel will benefit us; either short-term or long-term. Making life easier for myself happens to come in the form of minimalism, personal finance, and personal development.
Less Is More
A minimal lifestyle is defined as “intentionally living with fewer possessions, focusing only on the ones you need”. Simply put, minimalism allowed me to truly believe that less is more.
I used to be surrounded by items that once brought me short-term happiness only to find out years later that I actually didn’t even need those items. They were no longer serving any real purpose and the happiness those items once brought, had long faded.
This caused me to take time and really think about which items I no longer needed and could actually live without. This didn’t happen over night, but it turned into a long process that was worth it in the end. Us minimalists tend to call this removal process “Decluttering” and that is exactly what I did.
You Only Live Once
During the decluttering process, I started to remember exactly how much money I had spent on each item. Adding up the total made me realize that this was money I could’ve spent investing into my future.
People at a young age are often told that they work hard for their money and should therefore spend it because you only live once and don’t know what will happen tomorrow or if we’ll even still be here. Though that saying is true, we need to be reminded that we also don’t know how long we’re going to be on this earth for nor do we know what struggles we will face as we get older.
This statement helped me focus on personal finance and got me into the mindset of learning how to properly budget my money in a way where I could pay for my bills each month, put money into both a 401K and a savings account, and still have money left over to spend on the things I wanted and truly needed. This allowed me to become less stressed when it came to money.
Expand Your Mind
Minimalism combined with personal finance allowed me to clear my mind so that I could focus on other important things such as my mental health and overall well being. This came through working on personal development skills.
As weird as it may sound, this helped me expand my mind and understand myself, other people, and situations in a way that I never thought I could. This allowed me to not only keep myself motivated and uplift myself during tough times, but to also provide advice to close ones that were in need.
The Outcome
I’m definitely no expert, but the point of my blog is to give advice within these topics so that you can apply them to your lifestyle in order to help make life easier. Whether that means applying all the advice or even just bits and pieces of it.
If any one of these blog posts end up helping you out in any way, just know that it was made simply for you.