Heating turned off

I think there hasn't gone by a year in which I used the heater more than this past winter, despite the relatively warm temperatures we've had. It's probably got to do with certain health issues I'm facing. Still a bit disappointing, even when I know the cause. This year certainly was not cheap when it came to utilities! Fortunately we are able to pay it, unlike so many less privileged people, which I'm very grateful for. But, both the cheapskate and environmentalist in me certainly do not like it. 

But for the past two weeks, with spring being a bit early this year, we've had the heater completely off. Not even just little warming up the house for half an hour or so. We don't have a thermostat, but there's a thermometer on my kitchen scale (which I know is reliable) that indicated around 20° (C). I must add that the kitchen is usually 2 degrees cooler than the rest of the house - and hotter during the summer. So it's around 22° now in our living room (and despite that I'm still wearing a thick jumper) which is quite nice. 

I really hope the heater stays off until next winter. And I'll challenge myself to not put on the heater even if there come a few more chilly days. 

Homemade "soy" sauce

Being a from scratch cook, I'm always up to challenges to make food more frugally and using substitute ingredients that otherwise aren't available where we live. Here in Tunisia they aren't big on Asian foods - there's no such thing as an "world food aisle", or however you want to call it, in the supermarkets here, like we were used to in the Netherland. Maybe this is different in the capital city, but certainly not around these parts. And to be honest, having adapted to the local cuisine I don't really miss Asian foods either, as the local cuisine is just as delicious. Epecially after minimising the variety in dishes I cook, there's not a big need for most "foreign" ingredients. However, there are some dishes I use soy sauce for, and soy sauce isn't a thing that's available here. Recently, I saw a web shop that sold soy sauce for an absolutely ridiculous price, and I wasn't tempted to order it. Especially since I make my own, much cheaper, alternative! After moving here I initially just made do without, but then I found some recipes online and adjusted some things here and there until I perfected my own "soy" sauce recipe! 

For one batch* you'll need: 

4 heaped spoons of plain white rice, the cheapest you can find                                    

Half a spoon of fenugreek seeds                 

One spoon of cocoa powder                              

3 cardamom pods        

Some black peppercorns and cloves (not really counted them, not too much, probably about 4 cloves and 10 black peppercorns)

A teaspoon of ground ginger

A teaspoon of black tea 

3 tablespoons of sugar 

4 vegetable or mushroom bullion cubes (I use vegetable as mushroom cubes aren't available here, but I guess mushroom would enhance the flavour quite a bit. But vegetable bullion cubes are OK too) 

Half a teaspoon of salt, or a bit less, since the cubes are already quite salty 

2 spoons of vinegar 

3 cups of water

Boil the rice in the water. Now I usually cook rice using the absorption method, but not for this specific recipe, as you'll need the starchy rice water. So boil the rice in 3 cups water. When it's done, drain the rice. Now to the rice water, add in all the remaining ingredients. Start off by mixing in the cocoa powder using a whisk, since it can become quite lumpy, and then add in all the other ingredients with no specific order. Let it simmer until around half of the water has evaporated and let cool. Once cooled down, strain the sauce (preferably using a mesh sieve) and discard the whole spices. 

Just some notes: 

*By one batch I mean I can fill several small (250 ML) bottles. Since this sauce doesn't keep very long in the fridge, I usually freeze my sauce and just keep in the fridge the amount that I'm using right away. 

By 'teaspoon' and 'tablespoon' I don't mean the ones that are used for measuring, but the ones we eat with. One "eating tablespoon" is somewhat bigger than a "measuring tablespoon". 

You can leave the tea out- it's just there to enhance the brownish black colour - I used only cocoa powder at first, but I've found that using some tea along the cocoa, it made a better colour. But you can leave out the tea if you prefer or use a brown/black colouring instead. 

Homemade broth can be used instead of the cubes, although the results might vary. I've used different types of broth for this, but the cubes really give the best results in my opinion. I'm not very fond of using a lot of bullion cubes because of the MSG they contain, I must admit, so I don't use them a lot. In fact, this is one of the very few ways I'm using them for. 

Make sure you use your rice! Whether it's added to a soup, or making rice pudding out of it... Whatever you feel like making with the rice, just don't discard it, ok? 😬

Of course, for most people soy sauce is easily available, so this probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. Still, I'd probably be making this even if soy sauce were available here (and decently priced). Because it's easy, tastes just as good (in my opinion, anyhow!), and I just like making my own foods I guess. It's also good for people who avoid soy for health reasons, which is also why I still wanted to share this recipe. 

Double items

Ever since we've downsized from a terraced house to a bungalow/apartment kind of house, a lot of things have changed. Obviously it's always a big change to make a move to another country, but the fact that we downsized defenitely changed many aspects of our lives - and I don't mean in a negative way. Apparently, for some reason, it's not really acceptable to live in a small house, and I'm yet to understand why. Probably people view big houses as a status symbol and it's something to be ashamed of when you can't meet that standard, but I personally couldn't care more about other people's opinions about where and how I live. It's hard to imagine that there are actually people who care about that that much. Perhaps there are people who really thrive in a big house, and don't live in a house for the wrong reasons such as status, but personally I'm glad we downsized. I love living in smaller places, and always have. I have vivid memories of me as a very young girl asking my mum as to why we didn't move to a flat- we were living in a very big house/mansion at the time. 

Since we moved abroad we couldn't take most of our belongings with us. Well technically we could, but that would have cost so much money that it wasn't quite worth it, especially given the fact that most of our stuff we bought was very cheap, like thrifted or bought at a dollar  store kind of shop, some belongings were even free. We did take some things with us though, but it was very minimal compared with what we had. To pare belongings that had sentimental values was a bit tough, I must admit, but overall it was a good fresh start to have much less. What stands out mostly is probably the fact that right now, we don't have multiple floors here. As with everything, multiple floor buildings have pros and cons, but when it comes to having stuff and especially trying to minimalize your stuff, I'd say there's a lot of cons to having a multiple floor house. Why? Well, because let's face it... People tend to be forgetful and lazy at times. So the items cluttered on the stairs, intended for the next person to bring upstairs, usually never reached their end destination- unless the stairs became too cluttered OR someone started to complain about it (just forget about minimalism for a second- this can be quite unsafe, especially in case of an unexpected fall or fire!). And usually people don't like to move items from upstairs downstairs (and vice versa) all day long. For this reason, we had a lot of double items. Still not quite as much as some others do (I remember my grandmother having two vacuum cleaners, for example), but still a lot of more "double stuff" than we do have now. To mention a few: toys, cleaning supplies/wipes, books, and so much more. 

Having multiple floors aside, I did have too much double items anyway. I was a bit obsessed with having "spare items", and still am at times, although not as obsessed as I used to be. For example, I had two ladles in the kitchen, and actually remember to consider even buying a third one! Even though washing up that used ladle to use for something different is just a matter of a few seconds probably. It's just a matter of habit. People have double items because they're just so used to it. The same with chopping boards- I used to have three, then when we moved, it was "just" two. But then I switched to a wooden chopping board and bought one, and tried to make do with that one for as long as I could. And guess what- i'm yet to miss my spare chopping board! Some friends suggested that I'd get another one- one said "just in case", the other claimed that it was "essential to have more than one". Although I do a lot of from scratch cooking and with no such thing as pre cut vegetables here, I cut all my vegetables, I still wonder how "essential" that really is. And this goes for so many things I once had double; or even triple... The thing is, double items can be quite convenient, but I learned to actually consciously decide whether I should have doubles of certain items. Double items can trap one into being a lot more messy- you have a few of them anyway, so it doesn't matter if it ends up in a pile of stuff, or you can wash up all those double/triple items "later". And yes, it's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I'm talking from experience now! 

So have I become more organized after minimizing certain objects? Not necessarily, not in every aspect anyhow. But there's certainly some improvements, which I'm actually quite proud of. Unfortunately I'm not the neatest person by nature, and it takes some effort to actually get myself to decluttering, so avoiding clutter altogether is of course the best option. But having less double items has made my life a bit easier for sure- not to mention it's way more cost effective. 

Was my grandmother rebellious?

We just opened our last jar of homemade, home-canned apricot jam. Jam is one of our favourite bread toppings and I love making my own. There's an abundance of fruits here during the spring/summertime, and apricots are just one of the many fruits that we make jam with. This is what my grandmother always did; even though the fruits available for her were a bit more limited, as apricots aren't native in the Netherlands, so she probably just used strawberries, raspberries, rosehips, or prunes. Either way, making jam was one of the things she always did during the summer. Even my own mother did this a lot (even though in the 1990s, store bought jam became the norm). There was a huge field near our house where we'd pick gooseberries and blackberries, with permission of the orchards owners, and then she made a big supply of jam which lasted quite a while. We also grew strawberries in the garden some years, but I can't really remember whether my mum turned those into jam. 

Not only is this a fun thing to do -for me anyhow-, I also think it's important to learn the old fashioned ways of preserving foods and re-learning old fashioned skills that are nearly forgotten. With all the insecurities people face these days, it's good to have a food supply that will last when you're having a financial tough situation. And it's just nice to know how to process your produce yourself, if your neighbour gifts you a massive amount of fruit that you at least know what to do with it (that happens so often here!). It's also a good way to save money. All these skills combined is probably what makes people admire grandmothers in general, and which is the very reason why people talk about "granny hobbies"... I found out a bit too late that this really is a thing, and if it weren't because of social media, I probably still wouldn't have a clue about it. And I actually have quite a few "granny hobbies".

The thing is, however, that while some people are romantizing their grandmothers lifestyles, there's something I just don't really get. And that is the way how most of our grandmothers did their canning, is suddenly labelled as "rebel canning". I don't know if this is another social media fad, but all I do know is that some people are going overboard with certain aspects of food safety. This means that not only my grandmother's method of the canning itself is not "approved", it's even the kind of jars she used- apparently Weck jars aren't considered safe enough, despite everyone used them for decades. Heck, in Dutch we even say "wecken" which simply means "to can", referring to the old trusty Weck jars... What I don't really get is that the reason for some people to home-can is because a lack of trust in the way the industry is preserving and processing foods -something I honestly get, but then going overboard when it comes to food safety when processing yourself. 

Let me be clear- I'm not claiming this is the absolute truth, or that you should start to "rebel can" if that makes you uncomfortable. But I honestly trust my grandmother more than any official government guideline, and if that makes me rebellious, so be it. Who would have thought that rebellion, in 2024, means canning food the way your grandmother did? 😃

My way of grocery shopping

Isn't it a bit ironic that supermarkets have been around only for the past hundred years -in most countries even less than that-, yet, if you tell people that you rarely go to a supermarket, they wonder how on earth you are able to get your groceries? I can understand that, but it's also a bit concerning to me, honestly, that the old ways are slowly fading away. My other problem is that the food system we're relying on is so broken and not trustworthy at all. All it takes for empty supermarket shelves is a a transportation strike, storm or disaster of some sort. Or even personal financial crises, as a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck, or have little savings that leave no room for big emergency expenses. This is why I'll always be advocating to have at least a reasonable stockpile at home. Perhaps it's due to my anxious personality, but I'm amazed at some people's attitudes who consider the supermarket shelves as their pantry, people who go to stores everyday to buy their foods for just that particular day, etc. With all this in mind, we aim to be more self sufficient. We've certainly not arrived, but we're trying to do our best to be at least a bit less relying on the bigger food chain system. The less links in the chain, the better. This is also why I don't like supermarkets: if you can buy your potatoes from the farmer, why would you pay for someone transporting those potatoes to the supermarket? I can't say we buy all our goods directly from farmers, but at least we buy it from our local market where many vendors sell their fresh produce. It's fresher than you'd ever find at our supermarket here, not to mention way more affordable! Just for comparison: at the supermarket, courgettes were 3 times the price of what you'd pay at the market. 

So where do we get our groceries? Like I mentioned, our produce is bought at the market. We have a big weekly produce market and are fortunate that this happens to be near our house. But there's also a less big market at walking distance which is opened daily. If I don't bake bread myself, we get our bread from the bakery. There are two bakeries in our neighbourhood that sell only baguettes and round breads, so if we crave something different I have to bake it myself. As for meat and fish, we go to the butcher/fish sellers. Our grains, legumes, spices and things like that we buy at refill shops. These shops aren't comparable with the trendy "zero waste style shops" in Europe; it's more simple. There's just baskets with all their goods with a price tag attached on the baskets and you then tell the vendor what and how much you want. I really like the simplicity of these kind of shops. It's probably due to this simplicity that it's cheaper than buying at the supermarket. While we try to limit our use of processed/packaged foods, we still do buy some, which we usually do at the smaller corner shops. This includes certain cleaning supplies/detergents. There's so many of these kind of shops in every neighbourhood! In fact, we have one right in front of our house. 

Some people will argue that this way of doing your shopping might take a lot of time. Which can be true, but I think that's one of the nice things where we live; people tend to be not hasty or lacking in time. They just don't panic about time so much. We, too, try to apply simple and un-hurried living, which is such a relief when you were used to always have too hurry up, so I don't really care if something might take a bit longer. That being said, in our neighbourhood we have quite a few shops. In our street, for example, there are: 3 corner shops, one bakery, one butcher, one greengrocer, two small hardware stores, and one refill shop. So many of our groceries can be done just on the go, and when we need to go to another shop that's farther away from our house we usually go there when we're in the area anyway. I think another reason why I don't think this way of shopping isn't hard is because everyone is doing this here. It's just their normal. 

Do we never go to supermarkets? We do, but not very often. In fact, a few weeks ago was the first time this year I went to a supermarket- the visit previous before that was in August when we were on a short vacation. There's a few things we buy at supermarkets as we can't find them at the corner stores, so like many people here, we leave the supermarket with just a few items (I have NEVER seen someone with a full shopping cart!). And does my system of shopping "protect" our family from the flaws of the food system? Probably not really, but I think there's a lot of benefits for us in the way we shop: we're supporting small businesses, saving a lot of money, have interaction with the shopkeepers instead of being an "anonymous" shopper, we are environmentally friendlier when buying package free. And I think, perhaps best of all, are really getting the north African experience of doing our groceries, which I personally find so valuable. People here have so much feeling for their food and value it so much, whereas in my own background eating is something just done quickly out of necessity really. They put so much time, effort and love in eating and cooking which is something I absolutely admire. 

Learning frugality from other cultures

For most of my life I've been living quite frugally; my father is very very frugal, and so was his father. And I've defenitely inherited his frugal genes. There was a time when our finances were so tight that basic necessities had to be reconsidered and budgeted for. We did a lot of very frugal stuff such as not driving a car, eating mostly legumes as our main protein source, reusing food packaging, and buying second hand clothing. Growing up in a western country, all these things were considered very frugal or even cheap, or I dare say even poverty... Because for some reason, poverty in most western countries is considered something bad, something which you should be ashamed of- almost like it's omething sinful. Even though in most cases, and certainly ours, it was something we couldn't do anything about. We didn't buy a dozen of TVs on credit nor did we have a shelter full of cats, nor were we addicted to any substance- those are the most common prejudices about poor people, I guess. 

So sometimes we were proudly being frugal whereas other times we really tried to hide it a bit, because that's just how the society was. I honestly don't like hiding who I am. But having been bullied throughout all my school years, even in college by teachers, this really shaped me as a person, and I always tried being careful not to be the "weird" one. It took many years to heal and somewhat unlearn that and to be proud of who I was- with all my "weird", yet so valuable habits. I still carry bits of my past and I think being careful will never completely go away, but I can honestly say that I've made big improvements. The thing is, with people becoming more environmentally conscious these days, it's a bit less of a shame if you're not wasteful and you're not always considered "the stingy one" anymore, which is nice. Because of this you can just disguise your frugal practices as being environmentally friendly- even though both are usually important to most frugal people. But somehow being frugal is a bad thing, whereas being eco conscious isn't. People can be weird sometimes. 😃

It was such a relief for us when we moved to a country where not only being frugal wasn't something that was frowned upon; rather, it's the norm for most people! The "very frugal things" we did I mentioned earlier in this post, are actually quite normal things where we live. Yes, most people here don't eat meat daily, and certainly not red meat. Nor do they have more than one car - even middle class, two adults working kind of families. Even having no car isn't a big deal here. Yes, nearly everyone buys second hand clothing because new clothes means Chinese crap and there aren't fashion chains such as H&M or Zara in our area, so second hand clothing isn't necessarily something people do to save money, it's just the best choice you can make quality wise. Also it's totally accepted to haggle, especially with large expenses. Now you can't try this in the supermarket (well you can try, but with no result), but in a lot of other shops, at the market, and for services you're hiring someone, it's totally normal to haggle. This is honestly something you really need to learn. There's a lot of other things that are more acceptable societally here when it comes to frugality, and I could go on and on I guess, but my point is that you can really learn from other cultures. It just fascinates me how one thing is something shameful in one culture, yet in a different culture, it's the norm. And of course people here don't live perfectly zero waste, but at least I can really appreciate the more simple approach to materialistic aspects. 

What's also interesting is that they can learn a thing or two from the frugal ways I brought with me from my own country and upbringing. It's honestly not as much as I learned from them, but a typical simple Dutch practice they were not familiar with, for example, was to have just a sandwich as lunch instead of a cooked meal. This isn't something we do a lot because I like hot meals way more than I do cold sandwiches, but it was for sure a thing especially children enjoy. And probably the parents too, as it saves them time and money. 

Strawberry tops are edible!

Yesterday we bought this year's first strawberries! It's almost like a milestone each year; a sign that spring has really begun. I must say that I'm not the biggest  fan of winters, even though we do have relatively mild winters. For me, the warmer the better! Yes, I know that in northern Europe strawberries are a summer fruit, but where we live it's a late winter/early spring (until mid-spring) fruit. You'll find no strawberries during the summer here. So delicious, defenitely one of our favourite fruits. And something that reminds me of spring! 

As someone really against waste of all kinds, I knew I had to share a bit about making the most of strawberries. Fortunately, strawberries don't consist of a lot of peels/seemingly un-edible parts etc. So most of the fruit is eaten as is. Most people, however, don't know that the strawberry tops are edible, too. I didn't know this a few years ago either! Why is it so that these things are unknown to so many people? Such a missed opportunity. Not only are they edible, they're quite healthy too- I'm not sure anymore but I've read things about antioxidants, possible regulating blood sugar, possible lowering the risks of heart disease, and vitamin c, among other things. If you don't like the idea of eating the tops as is when you're eating a strawberry, there's still some other options. 

Last year, I dehydrated most of the tops, allowing them to stay shelf stable for a long time. I mainly use this for herbal tea. Strawberry top tea really tastes good! If you don't like dehydrating, you can freeze them too. Also, I've read that some people add the tops to smoothies. I'm not a smoothie fan so I haven't tried this. When fresh, they're good to add to salads, just like you'd do with other leafy greens. Apparently, they even have anti itch properties, which I'm yet to try, so not sure if that's true. 

Strawberry hulls are another part that is usually discarded. We usually feed them to our tortoises (we have a few pet turtoises), because they really love fruits. If there's a lot of hulls, like when you're making jam, you can try making strawberry juice/syrup by boiling the hulls in water and then adding some sugar (and letting the water evaporate in case you're making syrup). I do this with a lot of fruit peels/scraps and it always turns out so good. Other things that I've read about, but yet to try with the strawberry hulls: a water infusion and vinegar.

Homemade golden syrup

Living in a country where you can't buy everything you were used to can be a challenge. Sometimes you just make do without, whereas other times you might be able to make your own homemade alternatives. Sometimes the alternatives you make at home aren't exact duplicates of the ones you were used to, but that's a matter of adjustment. 

The syrup we used for pancakes in the Netherlands can't be easily duplicated, but golden syrup seems to be a decent replacement. It's easy to make and shelf stable for a long period, not to mention it's cheap to make! 

For one jar, you'll need: 

1 1/4 cups of water, plus 3 tablespoons

3 cups of sugar

One slice of lemon 

In a saucepan, bring 1 1/4 cups of water to a boil.* Then in the meantime, in another saucepan (preferably with a thick bottom) mix 1/2 cup of sugar with 3 tablespoons of water. Let it simmer until it starts to brown. Then slowly and carefully, add the boiling water, and the remaining sugar. Also add the lemon. Let it simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes. Then let it cool down completely. 

It may be too thick when cooled down, in that case just reheat it and add some more water. I like to add a few tablespoons very strong brewed black tea to give it a nice brown colour. To pour it in a jar, it's advisable to reheat it a bit anyway, in order to be able to pour it more easily. 

If the syrup isn't too thick (some people prefer it thicker whereas some like it runnier), but you still want that brownish colour, you can also add a teabag for a few seconds after reheating. Or add one spoon of brown sugar. Since we don't have brown sugar here, I just use the tea method. (We don't use tea bags though- which is probably worth a seperate post...)

Oh, and this is essential: don't skip the lemon, as it keeps the syrup from crystalizing! 

*You can use your electric water kettle too. I don't really use it, which is why I just heat up water on the stove. 

Is minimalism just about stuff?

I remember years ago, I was introduced to the idea of minimalism. I must say, it didn't quite appeal to me initially because I thought it was like having very little possessions for the sake of having little possessions without any purpose. Later on, I learned that some people's definition of minimalism was more like to focus mainly on the stuff that matters to them. Which in fact means that if somebody, say, values shoes a lot, it could be possible to still own 20 pairs of shoes but only one single cup or plate. That didn't quite sit right with me. That's not a good balance. 

I know that "maximalism" (whether that's an existing word or I just made it up, lol) certainly doesn't sit right with me either. It goes so, so against my values of simple and frugal living, of how to treat the earth and its precious resources. The "maximalist" industry makes big profits by selling and inventing new organisations tools and systems. I can't really understand how they succeed in leading to believe most people that they actually need all those boxes. If you've ever been to an IKEA or even a dollar store kind of shop, you defenitely know what I mean. It's ridiculous to have that much stuff to need entire rooms to store all kind of "nifty" boxes and drawers and containers full of stuff you don't use and likely are never be going to use, in my opinion. A lot of people who aren't well off financially could be benefiting from all those stuff people don't use, so even find this a bit selfish too. That's why and how I kind of embraced minimalism, but certainly in my own way and not the "trendy" kind of minimalism where you have a completely empty counter because you're afraid that your kitchen actually will look like a kitchen. Walking into our home you'll notice that there isn't a lot of trinkets on shelves etc. That's defenitely the "minimalist look" I guess. What parts me from other minimalists is that I'm not afraid to have an actual functioning kitchen where a lot of stuff is going on, so I'm defenitely not having a spotless, empty counter all the time. I'm also not afraid to reuse things like food containers and put them on shelves instead of hiding them because they don't quite match. And I really don't care that my mismatched reused jars in which I store my herbs in, don't make my kitchen look like a museum or laboratory- in fact, I'm even proud of that! It means that I have a fully functional kitchen full of activities going on, and that I'm not against reusing things, even if they're not the best aesthetically, which I really like. 

But- when it comes to minimalism, I've noticed that it's usually only about stuff and clothes. Even when people are really into that, I guess after a while you're done with minimizing your stuff and clothes. After all, you can't minimize possessions you don't have anymore. When I read about other people's minimalism, they proudly tell that they just own two jumpers and three plates. While I can understand that makes life a little less complicated, I also wonder what's it with this focus on stuff. A while ago, I began to wonder how I'm not your average kind of minimalist (in the traditional sense), yet I'm really a minimalist in so many other ways. 

For example, I don't have a lot of friends and acquaintances. I do have friends who live in another country, and I've never bothered to start new friendships after we immigrated (being autistic doesn't quite help with this of course). I enjoy my alone time and I've never felt lonely. Unlike many neurotypical people, I guess being alone for me is something different from being lonely. Being alone isn't something I do a lot, having a family. My husband doesnt work outside the home, so he's home a lot, which I really don't mind though- but this means I actually value my alone time even more when I get to enjoy some alone time! I must add that I'm not against friends or socialization in moderation. I just don't really feel the need to. 

Another thing that I minimized which wouldn't fall in the stuff/things category, I think, are our meals. In the past I really felt the pressure to try out new meals at least every so often. This had probably something to do with all these nutritional advices; eating as balanced as possible is a must, or that's what some nutritionists make us believe so. I don't think we should eat THAT balanced- in the past, people would just eat what was available in their country and people would only eat seasonal produce. And they only had a few staple foods. I was also afraid that my husband would find it boring if I'd serve certain meals regularly. Turns out it was the other way around; he actually complained a few times that there were dishes I'd only made once and he never saw them again. :') It took quite a while to figure out what our favourite dishes were, and how often we were willing to eat those etc. But now that I'm not experimenting that much anymore, I feel like we're enjoying the food that we do eat even more! And I still do try out new things every so often- just not as often as I used to. I also don't really go on vacations a lot. The other day I read this phrase: I want to a create a life in which I don't need to go on vacation, and I really liked that! I'm very much a homebody so being comfortable and cozy at home just makes sense. 

Ok, this one does have to do a bit with stuff, but I still found it worth to mention. We lived without television for a lot of years, and only recently own our very first TV. That doesn't mean it gets used a lot though, there's only 3 channels - educational/religious ones. And we don't have streaming services at all. If we feel like watching a documentary there's always the free optio of YouTube. So I guess we're quite minimalist in this aspect. 

When it comes to cleaning products, we're also quite minimalist- right now I use plain household soap (solid for cleaning random things/stains on clothes/the sink etc, and a liquid one for the laundry), washing up liquid, and vinegar. (And the occasional bleach but please don't tell anyone! Lol) I hate scented stuff anyway and it's much easier if you can't choose between 16 products. 

We defenitely minimize our outings: because we try not to use our car a lot (for environmental reasons, as well as financial reasons), and because of the weather- there's not a long period of really nice weather where we live, it's either very hot or very cold. Right now we're in a very nice month, but it won't be long until it's getting cold. Plus, we're just homebodies, all of us genuinely enjoy relaxing at home. Especially on days when the children don't go to school, because their school is quite demanding. A few months ago, we went on a small vacation to the coastal area of our country. It was the first time in at least 4 years. Can't say we didn't enjoy it, but I wouldn't care if we didn't go, honestly. So that's an area in our lives in which we're quite minimalistic too. And the same goes for eating out. It's sometimes a bit hard to understand for me why people enjoy that. We enjoy having a delicious home cooked meal rather than waiting for your food to come, not even knowing how nice it'll taste, and then of course paying a whole lot of money for that!

So in what areas ARE we minimalist when it comes to stuff? That's an interesting question because we're drowning in some stuff (who said it's a bad thing to collect empty glass jars? 😉), whereas of other areas, we don't have a lot. Let me start with appliances that most people do have, but we don't! We don't own a dryer, dishwasher, microwave, slowcooker, instant pot, standmixer, coffee maker, boiling water tap, and my hair dryer is 23 years old and is closer to not working than to working and I'm not planning on replacing one, just to name a few things. And oh, I really hate single purpose appliances, like egg boilers or electric pancake makers. It takes up so much space and it's just pointless in my opinion (we do have a waffle iron though... And even though you can technically use it for other things than waffles, we usually don't. But we just really like waffles, and fortunately it doesn't take up that much space). That's when it comes to appliances, but the interesting thing is that we don't own a lot of stuff that I see in homes of people who typically call themselves minimalist, which I think is rather interesting. We don't have a ironing board, knife block, "fancy" china (my grandmother used to have two sets of China- one for daily use and one for special occasions, but I just see that as needles space occupation), a wok, grill pan, Dutch oven, multiple chopping boards, tape holders, an attic full of camping stuff -which is common with so many people I now, and thankfully I don't have hobbies that require lots of things, like puzzles or crafting. Oh, and believe it or not, but as a family of four, we recently bought our first laundry hamper in a few years! Living without one is doable but it just began to irritate me, as I'm typically not the kind of person who is good at being on top of tasks such as doing laundry. Speaking of laundry hampers, as I mentioned earlier how I dislike all the so called organisation tools/stuff and the marketing around it, this is probably why it took me so long to buy that new laundry hamper- we had one, but my husband used it to make a grocery shopping trolley, and then I decided to do without a laundry helper for as long as I could... It reminded me of how needless all of those boxes, baskets and "nifty" organisation stuff really are (of most of them anyhow). 

So all in all, I would probably fit in the image of a minimalist but I'd rather not call myself one.