Who hates cooking?

I recently read something quite interesting. It was about people always "bragging" (as that person put it) they love to cook, and how in reality it really sucks having to cook every single day, again and again. I found it interesting as I'm quite the opposite- I love cooking. I actually can relate to people not wanting to cook everyday, as my health issues sometimes make it difficult to have the same energy level everyday. I might have a few "good days" in a row, in which I do a lot of cooking, which is usually followed by lower energy days in which I'm happy when I have enough energy to reheat the previously batch cooked food, plus the few dishes needed for that. So yes, I get that people don't want to be cooking every single day. 

What I can't relate to, however, is not liking to cook. When my lower energy days are over and I feel better I can't wait to do some cooking, meal prep, or start a new "project" in my kitchen. Or bake some fresh bread- as long as it's kitchen related, I'm thriving! Even on some of the lower energy days- because I like cooking and making things from scratch, it does give me energy (well, not always, obviously). I think it would feel terrible to have to do something everyday that I really dislike. Especially in a country where there aren't a lot of convenience foods, as is the case where we live. And by convenience foods, I don't necessarily mean TV dinners and other unhealthy stuff but even frozen foods, most tinned foods, pre-made sauces etc. It made me think what I would do in such an instance. Would I just accept that cooking is part of life even if I'd hate it? Or live off of instant ramen and sandwiches? Or get daily takeaways, hiring a private chef even? Those last option is probably out of budget to most people and it would certainly make a big dent in our monthly expenses. And solely relying on sandwiches and ramen is just too unhealthy. What's left is accepting that not every part of life is always fun. 

Probably not a popular opinion, but even the dishes I don't mind, on most days anyway. And I say that as someone who doesn't even own a dishwasher. Some people might see it as bragging but that's really not my intention. I think it would be a good thing if we'd all be a bit less hedonistic. There's nothing wrong with having fun, but not every single thing has to be fun. Sometimes you just do what you have to do, today's society makes it so complicated. 

What I also don't get is people don't want to think in solutions but rather see difficulties. As I mentioned, I find it hard to cook every single day due to health issues (despite actually enjoying it). But that doesn't mean we can't make things easier for ourselves... Why not do meal prep, so you have one day of work and the other days it's simply re-heating or at least be ready faster? Why not just have simple meals? As long as we get our nutrients, meals don't always have to be complicated. Apparently, some people do meal prep for weeks or even a whole month. While that wouldn't work for us (I'd need an extra freezer, lol) it's definitely food for thought and a good idea for those that despise cooking. One day of work, 29 days being free of cooking, sort of of.  It's easy to just nag and see things negatively.  And although disliking certain tasks might be natural, a bit of an attitude change, as well as some practical preparation, go a long way. 

Our canceled vacation

When summing up my recent frugal activities, I mentioned the biggest money saving thing of all, which wasn't a very conscious frugal thing technically, but still saved us quite a lot. We were supposed to go on a short vacation, just like we did last year, but was canceled due to different unforeseen circumstances- floods in the area where we wanted to go, among other reasons. Fortunately, we never book anything beforehand, so that wasn't an issue. To be honest, I don't mind it at all- I'm a homebody, I love being at home, relaxing, peace and quietness, and just doing everyday things. And I have a hard time with change. By the time I've adjusted to the new temporary environment, it's usually time to head back home... Which is another adjustment to deal with again! That doesn't mean I don't enjoy vacations at all, it's just that I don't really miss it. It's that the children like to go on holiday, but I wouldn't necessarily do it for myself. 

But here's the interesting part. While vacationing can be done for many reasons, people usually go on vacation to recharge themselves kind of, escaping their busy and complicated lifestyles so they can manage somewhat and wontburn out. They literally need a break and feel the need to escape for a while. It's interesting how vacations were almost nonexistent around 100 years ago, despite the lower standards of living generally. As people gained more wealth, so did vacationing become more common. This is a bit ironic to me- you'd think that with a hard, poverty stricken life, you'd need to escape every so often more than anything. But apparently, the wealthier kind of lifestyles, despite all the comfort, are quite tiring as well. More stuff usually means more worries. Not just more stuff- more appointments, more everything... I would be stressed out too. 

We, on the other hand, made a conscious decision to have a slower, more simple life, which is also probably why it's not really a big deal that we didn't do a holiday trip this summer. It's almost like our life is a holiday in and of itself- well, not completely, but by just doing what makes us happy, not worrying too much over small things or people's opinions and being in a beautiful environment. I once read a quote saying "I want a life that you don't need to escape from with a vacation" (or something similar). And that was really relatable! Not only do I want that, I also feel like we're living such a lifestyle already- or are very close to anyhow. The children said that they too didn't really mind their vacation being canceled, which probably has to do with peer pressure (or the lack thereof). Not many of their classmates would actually go on a vacation anyway. Those that do, most probably wouldn't even go abroad, but instead go to this country's coastal region (which is a few hours driving from where we live). I'm glad that there isn't very much pressure here to have the newest stuff, farest vacation and biggest car. That really does put so much pressure on kids, as well as on their parents. I personally find it odd that there can be pressure on parents to take children on a vacation because otherwise they must be poor, neglected and have a miserable childhood, even though vacationing isn't something people have always done, but is rather a modern phenomenon. I'm glad that pressure (and even worse: bullying) is nonexistent here, and I feel sorry for parents that take their kids on vacations just so their kids don't get bullied, especially for people whose finances are tight and that money could have been spent in better ways. 

I think it all comes down to mindset. If vacations are essential to you it must be quite miserable not to be able to pay for one. If you don't value it that much, it's a whole different story. I think people should reeducate themselves about keeping themselves and the kids entertained at home and to enjoy the small pleasures of a simple way of life. I'm not saying people can't go on a trip if that's what they like, but just a suggestion as to what's possible if going on a trip is too expensive, or impossible for whatever reasons. 

So anyways, our vacation plans being canceled wasn't a big deal to us. And it saved us a lot of money! Either way, we all did enjoy our three month long summer break. 

Some reasons for being frugal

I read a article the other day on why people choose to live a frugal lifestyle and I found the perspective interesting, although I didn't really agree with it- it claimed that being frugal is usually done out of necessity, which is why being frugal is not so sustainable long term, as it might make people feel deprived. 

Feeling deprived is defenitely something that can happen when you're making a lifestyle switch cold turkey, especially when you simply have no other option. So I get that. Where I don't agree is claiming that necessity is the only reason to be frugal. It's almost saying as if being frugal is somewhat pathetic. I am pretty sure that most frugal people are frugal out of choice. It's also interesting that poor people are often the least frugal people out there- despite being frugal would help them a lot to struggle a bit  less. As someone experienced both periods of poverty as well as more comfortable stages financially, I can tell that being frugal absolutely helps when you're in dire need, but it also helps when you don't absolutely need to. It all depends on the reasons why you're being frugal in the first place. 

The environment is not the first reason people think about when it comes to frugality, but for us this is one of the biggest reasons. Not only was I brought up to value green living, but being religious we believe that we need to take good care of the creation. We are not allowed to misuse resources and pollute the earth even more. Especially when we're facing crises like these days, this should be even a bigger argument to be very frugal. Yes, of course money plays a role too. As I mentioned, having experienced relative poverty, I know what's it like to have to pinch pennies. Even though I don't *have* to anymore, I think having gone through a more lean period can change people for good, I'll never take having a good material life for granted anymore. That being said, our income is fluctuating so it's always good to have money to spare for periods when money is more tight. 

Some people will be surprised by this, but I just really, really like being frugal. I probably have the same excitement over having found a way to reuse a certain item or a way to cut down on electricity use that others would have after going on a shopping trip. This is why I never will become "normal" when it comes to spending money, throwing out stuff etc. But what even is normal? 100 years ago, frugality was the norm, whereas unfortunately these days, overconsumption and tossing away perfectly functioning stuff is considered normal. It's sad. I'd rather be the weird one than being wasteful. And I'm convinced that us frugal people will eventually prove the consumerism wrong. It probably has to take a few more crises until that happens. 

I also find it very important to set a good example for the next generation, particularly my own children. It's funny to see them coming with random items they're about to throw away and asking me first if I'd want to keep it. It's also cool to see them making their own decorations for their rooms, rather than buying. Yes, they do have store bought decorations, don't worry- but I guess they just know the value of reusing stuff just too well. Most things they make are real pretty though. My oldest is becoming more into fashion and clothes and she rather buys them second hand. Our second hand market for clothes here is huge and she's always so excited when she found clothes that matches her size and taste perfectly! 

Also, as much as we value frugality, we probably value slow and simple living even more. Even if it might cost a bit more in some cases. Having turned my back to the consumerism culture feels just so liberating. Trying to meet al the standards that most western societies set is like having your mind turned on 24/7, and I'm glad I refuse to take part in that rat race. Slow living and frugality usually go hand in hand though, they seldom contradict each other. You refuse to buy the newest trends just because they're the newest trends, you don't feel the need to buy that "necessary" new kitchen appliances that promise you to make your life even more easy- for busy people, that is. You don't have to upgrade your house a the time. You don't feel like you need to meet all the expectations of keeping up with the Jones's. Here in Tunisia, especially in the more impoverished areas (like where we live), there is no such thing as "keeping up with the Jones's" anyway, because very few people can afford to be like the Jones's. So that's an easy one. That can be one's definition of frugality, but for us, it's not just frugality, but also more simplifying our life.

As I mentioned before, being frugal and "simple" can make you being the weird one often. For a long time that bothered me a bit, because why would people be so judgy? I now know that that's just the way most people are- afraid of the unknown. I now try to do my best to set an example in the hope that I can inspire others to live a (little) bit more sustainable/frugal/simple, because I truly believe that's also in their best interest. Also, when you're trying to set an example, that leads to more accountability. Which is a good thing for my own conscience. 

Saving for a rainy day- without having social security or a pension to look forward to, I think it's defenitely important for us to live frugally right now as we basically have to save up for our own pension (if it's decreed for us to reach that age anyhow). Or just unexpectedly high expenses. This feels different for us than to be frugal out of necessity. Some people might say it's similar, but since we don't actually need it right now to survive, it's still a bit different. 

So- that were our reasons to be frugal. Yours might be different, and that's ok. 

Reheating foods without a microwave

Apparently it's surprising to some people that we don't own a microwave. People have become so accustomed to using appliances for about everything that we kind of forgot how to do things in a more simple/old fashioned way and even think it's impossible unless you have a device doing it for you. We did have a microwave in the past, but haven't owned one in over 14 years. When my sister's oven died, we gave our oven to her, which was a small microwave/oven combo (we had a stove with bigger oven, so never really used the oven part of the microwave). That's when I realized that a microwave wasn't a necessity for us. Apparently, this is quite a controversial topic. Probably because the reason why some people refuse to use a microwave isn't exactly evidence based and people tend to link that to conspiracy theories. I can understand that, which is why I firstly wanted to make clear the reason behind not owning one. And I don't judge people for being into "conspiracy theories" or believe certain things that aren't considered evidence based; I just wanted to make clear our reasons behind this. Which is quite simply just not seeing the need to own one. 

Isn't it interesting that one day you're convinced that you actually need a certain thing, only to find out you can easily do without after it's gone- the opposite way would be a lot easier. What's also interesting is that people here generally don't have microwaves either. They do sell them obviously, although there aren't quite a lot of different types. The combo things like we once had aren't even being sold as far as I know, so it's just individual microwaves. I actually know only one person that owns a microwave and she doesn't really use it a lot. People generally were just brought up reheating foods the old fashioned way and probably don't feel the need to buy something that does it for them. Which also plays a role is that they don't sell foods here that need to be microwaved- there's not a lot of convenience foods, and certainly no "TV dinners" kind of foods. So what do you do with a microwave then, after all. 

Anyway, here are some tips on reheating foods without a microwave. It seems like people would like to live without one, but aren't sure how, so I'll share some practical experience that I've gained throughout the years. 

• Soups, stews and other liquid foods are a no brainer to me, but I'm including them anyway. All you need is a saucepan of some sort. I'll be honest, I sometimes use an old frying pan, to make reheating quicker (the narrower the pan, the longer it takes to heat). 

• Pasta dishes: I reheat this in a frying pan on very low heat, stirring occasionally. I do this too with rice, although with rice I prefer to add a few spoons of liquid. Then just heat until the liquid has evaporated. With mashed potatoes this works as well. 

• Couscous: just the same way as it's being prepared- by steaming. This doesn't necessarily have to be a steaming pan, you can also use a meat sieve or colander. I'm not sure how it will turn out when using instant couscous as I've never used that. This will work for plain rice too. 

• All kids of foods that have been fried up previously, such as baked potatoes, fish, eggs, chicken, vegetables etc. Eggs are probably not the first food you think about when it comes to leftovers but I thought I'd include it anyway, 'cause you never know. These you can all re-fry again, on a low temperature and flipping regularly. 

• Food that's already on a plate is a little bit more complicated to reheat. Just a little bit. I have two methods: either to heat it up with the water bath kind of method, when you have a plate on a hot saucepan and let it simmer for as long as needed, usually not longer than 10 minutes and then letting it sit there for another 10 minutes or so (be careful when you take off the plate!). This works best with soup plates. My other method is to use my cast iron pan which I use to bake bread on the stove. I heat up this pan until it's very hot and then put the plate of food on it. If the plate isn't too big, I put another pan on top of it and cover that with something hot. I nearly always have hot pans on my stove, so when I just made something that needs to rest I'll use that. Sometimes I put a small saucepan on the lid of a bigger pan (they're metal lids, for safety reasons I wouldn't try this with glass lids). Another wat of water Bart heating is to put glass jars in a pot with water and let it reheat slowly. It's important to use cold water and let it heat up slowly as it could break the jars otherwise. This is especially handy when you have multiple small leftovers and you don't want to use so many pans. I use my glass jars a lot to store leftovers anyway, so this way I am saving a lot of extra dishes to wash. 

• Pancakes, breads, waffles etc. can be heated (and thereby, revived) easily in a frying pan, but I use my cast iron pan that is specially designed for making bread. We usually have either homemade flatbreads (north African style, which is kind of similar to pita bread), or baguettes that we buy at the local bakery. Especially the baguettes become stale quite quickly, and by reheating them they taste almost freshly baked again. It's also a way to defrost bread- just make sure the flame is set very low and that the bread is being flipped regularly. 

• Another kind of using residue heat is to use the oven. I have a toaster oven (albeit bigger, but it's an individual oven not attached to the hob), and especially when baking something that has a long baking time it can get quite hot on top. So I might use that every now and then to reheat foods on, by simply putting the plate there. Or just to keep foods warm. I also like to use it to dehydrate certain foods, but that's for another time. Another way to keep foods warm is to put pans on top of each other. This works well when pans can fit on top of each other, which isn't always the case, but when they do it's quite a handy way to keep foods warm until it's time to eat. This was done a lot in the 1950s, and apparently it was even propagated to do by the Dutch government, to encourage people to use less cooking fuel. 

• Steaming can be used not only for couscous but for so many other foods. I know my father in law sometimes steams his bread when it has become stale. And my grandmother reheated poffertjes (tiny Dutch pancakes) this way- she didn't have a "real" steaming pan but just used the metal colander which I mentioned earlier. This, she called "the poor man's microwave". 

• This is where I cheat a bit: I sometimes use my air fryer. I especially do this with small things as ours isn't that big. I reheat my baked oatmeal for example, although it's not limited to that. Other foods I can think about that I use my air fryer for are donuts, muffins (either savory or sweet), etc. To be honest, if it were me I wouldn't have purchased the air fryer, but we were gifted one. I do find them convenient at times though. If I wouldn't have an air fryer, I would probably have reheated the baked oatmeal/donuts by steaming. 

• Of course, you can also use an oven to reheat foods. I don't really do that, as it's very energy inefficient in my opinion. Even though our oven isn't as big as most other ovens, it still takes a lot of energy to heat up. With casseroles, this is probably the best and only solution (although, if using a round oven dish, I'm sure my previously mentioned method of the cast iron pan, will work just as fine). We don't eat a lot of casseroles and if we do, we usually don't have a lot of leftovers. But all in all the oven is the last option for me. This reminds me of when we had blackout of our gas and my mother in law wanted to reheat her tea. She ended up using our oven! She couldn't use hers, as she has a gas oven.i found it a bit weird honestly, but it did work. 

•The sun: since we live in a generally warm country, with plenty of sun, using sun warmth is obviously the most sustainable option of all! I might forget to take out a baguette from the freezer or something and just lay it outside in the sun. This works very good. I can't put everything there because of the cats in our garden, but defrosting bread isn't something that you can't do with the cats. When the heat is very intense during the summer, this should be possible with any food, although I must admit I haven't tried it a lot. 

• Heaters: I grew up in a home with a wood heater. There was a flat surface on top of the heater which was very useful to heat up foods, which my parents sometimes did. It will also work with most radiators. The heater we use right now isn't suitable to put things on, unfortunately, but when we did have radiators we used that to heat up foods. Just make sure you don't put that heater on for the sole purpose of reheating foods- in that case, you can even better use an oven. 😉

• Apparently, you can even use the dishwasher to reheat (or even cook!) foods. Since I don't own a dishwasher (and am not planning on getting one) I'm not sure how, and if, this works. I just read that others do this. If it does work and you're running a load of dishes anyway, why not? Probably most people find it gross, but with all the water inside the machine, I'm assuming that the food is covered properly anyway, so I don't see a problem there. But again, I can't attest to the correctness of this. 

So these were a few of the things I do. Kindly note that I'm not claiming these are the most healthy or safest ways- I'm simply sharing what works for us. What I'm sharing probably goes somewhat against most official guidelines. But then again, I personally don't really care about most rules and I guess I have my own kinds of guidelines. I mean, some things are obviously common sense, but I personally don't agree with the caution against reheating rice, just to give an example. That's going overboard with food safety concerns and I just think it leads to so much wasted foods. But, if it's a concern to you, just know that this is not necessarily meant as an encouragement to go against official guidelines. My intention is simply to share some of the things that works for us. 

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. 

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.