IK we have 6 bath towels for the 2 washrooms and 3 beach towels. I find that more towels just takes up space because I usually have to do a load when 4 are dirty since they're so big.

Speaking of minimalism in the home, I am in the midst of a minimalism experiment right now. I left my house in April for a small one-bedroom apartment. I did bring all my clothes, but I have just two sets of sheets, two sets of towels, much less kitchen stuff than I'm used to, and minimal furniture. And it is nice in a way to have a small space and fewer belongings. It's easy to keep the place neat, that's for sure.

The main reason I am looking forward to getting back in my house is that I love to entertain, and for that I feel like I need more space and more stuff. I loved having all the right cooking and serving pieces to put on a big party.

VernieJane, I have to disagree with,

"if we spend so much time worrying about..looking good,
then we are just focusing on our physical appearance, i.e. ego, which
certainly isn't the key to happiness."

I don't believe minimalism is always linked to selflessness. I have never been happier than I have been the past year focusing on my body's strength, endurance, and yes, appearance. Confidence and joy in one's outside nurtures the inside and is part of being happy with life.

If that's ego, bring it on.

what an interesting discussion! i fully agree that this is a matter of personal choice. i relate to what unfrumped said and i've personally gotten a bit obsessive about trying to work out the 'perfect' minimal wardrobe, as if some magical outfit would appear that would be right for every situation and i would feel fab in 100% of the time. regardless, it's going to be imperfect - so it's perhaps just a matter of finding the balance that's right for you. knwoing myself, i'll probably always be looking for that magic outfit!! along with the perfect my-lip color-but-better lipstick to go with it

Whenever I move to FL for a year or so I take on a minimalism lifestyle. We pack our clothes (not even close to all of them) our personal hygiene products, maybe some skates or dumbbells if we have the room. Get a microwave, set of 4 plates/silver (and a corkscrew! I was pushing in wine corks with batteries) Last time I lived there for a year and a half we never even got a couch.
Of course, here in Tahoe, we are already pretty minimal. There is not one bookshelf in our house, no tables, no desk. It is a couch, breakfast bar, and home gym in the spare room. I keep bugging the BF that I want a clock tail table (in all honesty he uses a cat condo/post to set his soda on). In an otherwise nice remodeled condo that's absurd! Anyway, I am quite minimal in most of my life, except for my clothing. I don't have multiple lipsticks or seasonal decorations for the house. Heck, I have just enough sheets for each bed, as does Raisin. I think we have 6 towels for our 2 baths We do, however, have way too many fluffy pillows for both beds.

Great thread, I loved reading your opinions.

As for the original article - I think a lot of it makes sense, but I don't think he really considered fashion as a hobby when he wrote it. To me it doesn't sound like he's talking about a fashionable wardrobe that needs to be pared down, he talks about impressing "with your character, not your clothes" after all.

For myself I think that there's a lot of truth in this. Like reducing colors, owning only one item. I do feel better with fewer but better options. For me it does reduce stress. If I have less stuff, I have more space, less things to clean and it's easier too keep order. That's not only the case when it comes to clothes, but also for other things. I purged a lot at the beginning of the year and I'm thinking of doing another sweep soon. Living in my small appartement suddenly got a lot more comfortable after I pared down in general. And It's really not like I'm missing anything.

Speaking of entertaining... tiny urban apartments are not for entertaining. I understand more now why there were lousy restaurants in the 'burbs and why I went to restaurants all the time in the city. In suburbia, everyone went a'visiting and threw dinner parties. In the city, you don't let any but the closest of friends into your bedsit. One is because of the mess, two is because of disturbing the neighbors, and three it takes the party down a notch when you keep smacking somebody in the head turning around.

I agree with IK.

Nothing would stress me out more than only having one towel for each member of our family. Teenage (and early 20s) boys dirty towels at an alarming rate! We have two sets of sheets for each bed so one can be washed while the other is on the bed. Plus extra sheets for the air mattresses and futons we use when we have houseguests (which is frequently, like right now -- we have our friends and their two kids with us, and I'm glad we have plenty of bedding to accommodate our visitors). Oh, and we have a pool, so we have probably 20 pool/beach towels (some of them I've had for decades). Pool party? No problem. Everyone has a towel, even if they forgot to bring one. I also keep spare swimsuits.

However, I hate clutter and cannot function in it. I am constantly purging paper, magazines, mail, etc., from our house. I am not, and never will be, a minimalist, but I must have order, function, and things of beauty and inspiration in my home and closet. To some, it would seem like excess, and to others it may seem modest, but for us, it's just right. Everyone has their own threshold, and we have to respect one another's balance points.

Ha, I'm willing to bet those of you who only have one set of sheets/towels have your own washer/dryer. Mine are communal (shared with ~30 other apartments) and are 4 flights of stairs down (and up when bringing back the clean laundry) and require 16 quarters per load. (It's not the cost that's prohibitive, it's that acquiring that many quarters requires forethought! In any case it's not practical to wash things immediately as they get dirty). So if the sheets get dirty, they get changed for the spare set, and the dirty ones go in the hamper to await the next laundry day.

I will admit however that we do have a ridiculous number of towels. J. and I both came with our own sets of multiple towels to the relationship, and then we got a whole bunch more as wedding gifts. I think I need to do a towel purge...

Hmm, I suppose that if my life were busy and stressful to start with I might be more drawn to minimalism, but honestly, my life is pretty calm right now. I do have too many clothes and too much clutter but for me trying to pick the perfect single coat or pair of shoes or whatever is far more stressful than having a couple to choose from for a given occasion.

I was pretty minimal most of my life, and managed fine with one winter coat, one pair of sandals that I wore to death for one summer, etc. I didn't feel fab, but generally OK, not stressed, although there was occasional scrambling and last-minute shopping for events.
At some point, well specifically when I went back to work after my first kid, the combo of being naturally minimal, cheap (and having more expenses than ever in my life), shorter on free time than ever before, and body issues ("I'll buy clothes when I get to size x") added up to a perfect cluster of complete wardrobe failure. I mean I had one pair of pants that I liked and fit ok, which my DH shrank in the dryer. I cried. It didn't matter that he offered to replace them because I didn't want to SHOP for more pants, damnit!
At that point I realized NOT having enough clothes was adding stress to my life and started working on that. Now I do feel I've gone a bit far (for me) in the opposite direction. I find it's a slippery slope. One pair of workhorse sandals, plus 2-3 pairs of cute "options", was truly enough for me. Now I have more pairs than *I* can wear (about 6, which is obviously well under many here... but far from minimal!) One pair of leather winter boots (not including snow gear) was fine. Now that I have two, I can see the need for pairs 3 and 4...

Arriving super late to this great thread to say, I'm with Ornella! I prefer mine with no croutons please!
That said, great analogies, Dana and Mary.
I am that person who goes blue is she has to have yesterday's leftovers for today's lunch---bar a few favourites. And the opposite goes for shopping/dressing. I love grocery shopping, happy to spend hours on it. I hate clothes shopping. Because funnily, I am very-very-very fussy about my clothes and really prefer the same few things in heavy rotation bar special occasions. And not having them or finding what I need/want to be 'just so' drives me nuts. With food I want variety and am distinctly unfussy---so am rarely disappointed while shopping or cooking, and while I appreciate great plating, can take it or leave it. [one common thread: I appreciate good worksmanship in both and abhor poor cooking or construction as well as mingy materials]
I will acknowledge that one external factor rather shoehorns me into this choice, at least in part: my kitchen budget is more generous than average; my closet budget is the opposite.
That said, over the last three months of being a nursing mum, I have realised I am not a true minimalist not only because I get bored/seek variety over time (short term: want few things in heavy rotation; long term: want closet to switch over with the seasons cyclically). I need duplicates because I don't do laundry as often as I'd like, for a variety of reasons, and air-dry the washing. Guess that's not strictly minimal?

Also late, but I have been thinking about this thread over the past few days. I would suggest that having a well curated wardrobe big or small, minimal or maximal would reduce stress. If it works well for you, then I would imagine it is relatively stress-less.

I don't think minimalism is necessarily the answe to being stress free Even though I am definitely a minimalist in general.

ManidipaM, I am far from being an expert on the concept of minimalism. This is just my take on it.

If you have duplicates of some items in order to minimize the *time* you spend on chores like laundry, I would consider that just another, equally valid way to "do" minimalism. From my POV, the value of minimalism to your life would depend on being self aware enough to know what part(s) of your life need to be minimized in order to make *your* life better.

But that's just me thinking out loud and rambling. My thinking out loud and rambling is rarely minimized.

Wow, what an interesting thread this has become! I've enjoyed reading everyone's take on minimalism in our wardrobes and households in relation to stress.

I have been following Josh and other minimalists for a while. Even before YLF. It is a very interesting concept. What many "minimalists" practice is extreme minimalism. Which is definitely not for me.

But once one makes a living at being a minimalist and he does, people expect him to show up in the same coat over and over. So he gets to the point where he doesn't really struggle much with it.

Many minimalists espouse doing it for the environment too. But they give classes and talks and travel all over North America to do it. Not friendly for the environment. Many write books and do tours for the books. They also don't have as much time as they think because they have to really push their minimalism to get sponsors and people to take their classes and to write. They need to make a living. I laugh when I go to a minimalist site and there are ads all over the place for "stuff". We have commercialized minimalism.

With all that said, I too feel anxiety from too much stuff. Mostly from having to do something with it - wash, iron, move around and store seasonally and so. The amount of paper that my kids bring home from school overwhelms me. The amount of mail overwhelms me. Mostly because I don't throw it out. I sort and recycle everything. I know that my life would be so much easier if I just had a really, really big garbage to throw everything in : clothes , shoes, paper, notebooks and so on. I know that I mentioned before too, that I wish our house was smaller. Though I have finally streamlined cleaning.

It is especially hard to do with a family and impose one's "minimalism" onto one's kids and spouse. I tried to impose the 8 outfit ( though there was a lot of mix and match ) rule with my kids and even my husband almost had a breakdown - and it wasn't even his wardrobe.

The truth is that "minimalism" in NYC is totally different from minimalism in our small town. We need a small snow plow, we can't really rent equipment around here for things, we entertain a lot of people 3 times a year, my husband travels a lot for work, we camp, and so on and so forth. UGH ! Help me !!! LOL !!!!

Though there is one website I love

http://www.planningwithkids.com

Finally, one of Josh's posts on becoming a minimalist (Living without Money)

http://www.becomingminimalist......iel-suelo/

I want to learn from someone who has found a balance that works in modern life...not someone who has "quit" money. I am not a fan of any form of extremism.

I don't strive for a truly minimalist lifestyle but I do want my things to fit in the space I have to put them in. I've been doing a 2 out to 1 in for each new item I buy so my closet is getting smaller. Plus I do a larger purge by seasons. I just went through winter items yesterday help me decide what I might want to look at during NAS and for fall. The exeption to this pairing down is in boots and booties where my collection is growing. Other catagories are shrinking though.

These sites aren't strictly about minimalism...maybe more about simplifying and decluttering...but I've found them interesting:

http://smallnotebook.org/

http://unclutterer.com/

http://bemorewithless.com/mini-missions/

http://www.missminimalist.com/.....ing-guide/