Looking specifically at the Minimalism and Minimalist Finances, FIRE, Tidying Up, Tiny House, Van Life, and Financial Minimalism movements, what did you learn? Each of these movements are counter cultural, but all are seeking margin without defining it as such. Building margin into your personal finances from a three-prong standpoint of audit, automate, and augment is critical in seeking any one of these lifestyles. No matter which movement you most-closely relate to, figuring out how to start by applying principles around building margin for what matters most to you will be beneficial in your journey.

Looking at essentialism from a standpoint of what is most-important and by default essential to you, will ensure you are not making little progress in a lot of different directions while missing the focus you need to make massive progress through focus. Figuring out how you need to go about refocusing through delegating, scaling-back, or remove entirely will ensure you are intentionally building margin. Looking at the trivial many tasks, project, or obligations otherwise to then narrow to the essential few will ensure that you live without regret. Knowing that almost nothing is truly essential, narrowing your focus will ensure that your time is spent on what is. However, in order to have focus, we have to be able to escape to focus. This focus enables a clear mind so that you are intentional about building in routines for what you commit to.

Financial Minimalism is a very new term that many are having a difficult time defining. Looking at this through the lens of both the defense and offense of your personal finances will help you to look at your financial picture first versus focusing on the belongings that you have. Looking at specific voices who have referred to this term, will help you determine whether you adhere to either methodologies.

People oftentimes don’t know what it ultimately means to be a minimalist and even more so what it means to apply a minimalist approach to your personal finances. While this movement has people with varying degrees of commitment to the cause, how correlated is a minimalist lifestyle to minimalist finances? Expanding this further to look at a new term called Financial Minimalism and how these terms differ. Then taking into consideration voices from each specific movement, will help clarify the approaches.

The Van Life movement is one that has continued to gain in popularity especially in the last decade as it has become a social media phenomenon. This lifestyle boasts the ability to retrofit large vans into living spaces to allow for minimalistic belongings and the basic necessities. There are a lot of different resources available to this community such as apps for places to park or camp, vehicle locating services, as well as builders who can spec out the vehicle you are looking to outfit. If you are considering this lifestyle, there is a lot to look at from the upfront cost, how normal conveniences of life would change, how you may provide a living, as well as the ongoing costs related to the van life. All of which we are looking to cover as an overview for this lifestyle.

The Van Life movement is one that has continued to gain in popularity especially in the last decade as it has become a social media phenomenon. This lifestyle boasts the ability to retrofit large vans into living spaces to allow for minimalistic belongings and the basic necessities. There are a lot of different resources available to this community such as apps for places to park or camp, vehicle locating services, as well as builders who can spec out the vehicle you are looking to outfit. If you are considering this lifestyle, there is a lot to look at from the upfront cost, how normal conveniences of life would change, how you may provide a living, as well as the ongoing costs related to the van life. All of which we are looking to cover as an overview for this lifestyle.

The tiny house movement has been one relatively slowly to gain momentum however, with increasing costs associated to building, home prices increasing far above wage growth, and the interest in getting out of cities to have space, these tiny homes have peaked the interest of many. Looking not only at the movement itself, but also looking at it from a lifestyle, hidden costs, and typical personal finance effects of the movement.

The Tidying Up movement originated by Marie Kondo who focuses on making sure your belongings inspire joy. Her unique approach to organizing your home life in order to have intentionality with what you own has caused many to rethink their lifestyles. She believes that organizing your things promotes decision-making allowing you to clear up mental space. Her approach to taking a closer look at what you own, how to store what you own, and how to best get rid of what you own when it no longer provides you with value, is especially helpful.

The Tidying Up movement originated by Marie Kondo who focuses on making sure your belongings inspire joy. Her unique approach to organizing your home life in order to have intentionality with what you own has caused many to rethink their lifestyles. She believes that organizing your things promotes decision-making allowing you to clear up mental space. Her approach to taking a closer look at what you own, how to store what you own, and how to best get rid of what you own when it no longer provides you with value, is especially helpful.

The Tidying Up movement originated by Marie Kondo who focuses on making sure your belongings inspire joy. Her unique approach to organizing your home life in order to have intentionality with what you own has caused many to rethink their lifestyles. She believes that organizing your things promotes decision-making allowing you to clear up mental space. Her approach to taking a closer look at what you own, how to store what you own, and how to best get rid of what you own when it no longer provides you with value, is especially helpful.