RETURN to Gentle Minimalism (and how we slipped back into our old ways)

Back in March of 2019, we were so proud of ourselves for getting rid of two households full of junk before we moved to Ecuador that we made a video about it and called it gentle minimalism. When we moved to Cuenca, we had just two suitcases each. We had a couple boxes of stuff stored at our family's houses, but those two suitcases had almost everything we owned. But after six years of living in Ecuador, we started to slip back into our old ways and we accumulated a bunch of stuff again. Yes, we did. So in this video, we're going to show you what we bought, how we got lured back into the consumerism lifestyle, and share our return to gentle minimalism. And stick around until the end because we'll also share some benefits and some tips to help you achieve gentle minimalism. But first, this is our October 2023 Members' Choice video for our patrons over on Patreon. If you would like to vote on the topic for the next video and get immediate access when it's finished, join our amazing community over on Patreon and get a bunch of additional perks. Thanks to our patrons, we're able to continue sharing all of this educational and hopefully entertaining content with you guys. Scan this QR code right here or check below for a link so that you can become an unconventional now. Before we moved to Ecuador, we were raging consumerists. When we met in 2020, we each had our own home. And like most Americans, both of our houses, basements, and garages were full of junk that we rarely or never used. Yeah, it took weeks to clean out my house. I had to sell stuff on Craigslist. Then I called those got junk people to have them come and haul away some old stuff because somehow my house became the repository for stuff nobody else wanted. So I had to deal with all of that. And then we ended up getting a dumpster because I had extra stuff that wasn't worth donating. And I also took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. On conventionals, I had way too much crap. When we sold my house and downsized into a one-bedroom apartment, we had an estate sale and sold almost everything. But there was even stuff left over that wasn't even good enough for anyone else's junk piles. A year later, we sold whatever we had left, downsized into four suitcases, and a couple boxes of documents and mementos. Yeah, in our mid to late 40s, we were officially minimalist. We moved to Cuenca, Ecuador in 2017 with those four suitcases. But after living there for two and a half years, we started accumulating again. The signs of consumerism were starting to become visible. Yeah, we bought some big small kitchen appliances, some patio furniture, bedding, some more clothes, a bunch of stuff for our YouTube channel that we didn't really need. By the time we moved to Olón in 2020, our four suitcases had turned into a full van load of stuff. We had Edwin's van packed all the way to the ceiling. It was kind of ridiculous. Yeah, and it didn't stop there either. We bought electric bikes. We bought beach gear. We bought more stuff for our kitchen, more stuff for our YouTube channel. We bought warm weather clothes because all our clothes in Cuenca is for cold weather. So we had more clothes, more shoes, more of everything. Yeah, and unfortunately, we did not get rid of anything when we were buying that new stuff. When we moved to Manta in 2021, this one van had turned into two vans. Yeah, looking back now, it's painful. We bought even more stuff when we were there because we needed a desk and an office chair for JP to work. We bought more stuff to do soundproofing and I don't know, we just bought more stuff. Yeah, more kitchen appliances too, a coffee maker and a blender and a random other things. So by the time that we left Manta and moved to Cumbaya, those two vans had turned into a moving truck. Now, okay, in our defense, it wasn't one of those massive like semi-moving trucks. It was the size of a U-Haul, but still, we're supposed to be minimalist, so we really lost our way, but it gets worse. We returned to the dark side of consumerism because we rented a semi-furnished apartment and we had more stuff. When we took possession in February of 2022, our three-bedroom condo was almost completely empty except for our desk and office chair and an air mattress that we bought to sleep on. Yeah, so we had to buy furniture, plates, dishes, towels, bedding, etc. You all get the idea. We also wanted to set up a recording studio for our YouTube channel and so we bought some more stuff for that like some more furniture and some lights and some sound dampening. Yes, and we bought some extra stuff for videos that we didn't really need and we even ordered a couple bookshelves that we were going to put in the background. That never actually made it into that room. We never used it. We bought more clothes. We just, I don't know what the heck we were thinking. We just completely returned to our old lifestyle. After we bought all of that stuff, we were about as far from gentle minimalism as you can get. The only thing we really lacked was a basement full of junk. Yeah, I have to say JP, now that we're recording this, I'm feeling a little bit of shame. I am too. I honestly thought that we wouldn't do that again but it was so easy. It was just like one little purchase at a time and all of a sudden we had a bunch of stuff again. Yes, it wasn't as bad as our lifestyle in the U.S. but it was still pretty painful. So you're probably wondering what we're rethinking and why did we decide to rent semi furnished when we're always telling you you can rent furnished here in Ecuador. Yeah, there's a few reasons for that. The first one is that we were just so tired of wall-to-wall furniture. The Ecuadorians love to stuff their places full of really big furniture to the point where you can't even walk around. Yeah, as a matter of fact in Manta, I broke a toe on each of my feet because the bed was so big and I would go walking through there in a hurry and I just slammed my toe twice, twice. That was not fun. And second, our plan was to buy a condo after our two-year lease was up but unfortunately that plan changed quite significantly because of a couple things that were outside of our control. Yes, my company moved me to part-time and cut my salary by 70 percent. A big part of this was after the pandemic because of inflation and the recession that was going on in the U.S. There was a lot of economic considerations there. Yeah, plus Ecuador is having some pretty bad safety and crime issues so a lot of our viewers have cut Ecuador off their list of places to move abroad which caused our views to go down as well as our income so we just didn't have enough money sitting around to buy or to pay all cash for a condo in Ecuador. Our plan has always been to travel around the world but we wanted to keep a home base in Ecuador. Our plan was to have that and then rent it out on Airbnb when we weren't there. Yeah, but unfortunately that wasn't possible and when Daisy passed away on August 30th, we decided that it was time for us to start traveling the world and so we had two choices to make with all of the crap we had accumulated. Store it or sell it. And storage is really not an option in Ecuador. They don't actually have a lot of storage facilities available. It's not very common. We did find a place in Quito but it was going to be kind of expensive and it was not convenient and not in the best part of town so we really weren't comfortable with that idea. Yeah, we were concerned that the stuff might get damaged while we were gone or might not even be there when we came back for it so we just decided that that just wasn't worth the cost. Even though it wasn't a ton of stuff especially compared to what we had in the U.S., it was still a hassle and we're still trying to get rid of some of that stuff. Yeah, thankfully a friend of ours who actually helped us design and custom build all of our beautiful furniture and surprisingly it was actually a lot cheaper to do that than it was to buy it at furniture stores which is why we did that. Well, she's agreed to help us sell most of that stuff. Everything that didn't sell before we left on our grand adventure is now in her living room plus a couple other boxes that she agreed to store for us until we come back to Ecuador. Yeah, we are back down to two medium-sized suitcases, two small carry-on bags, and our version of gentle minimalism. Unconventionals, hopefully we have learned our lesson this time because this is the second time we've downsized and I do not want to do it again. I found this whole process a bit painful and stressful and overwhelming and on top of that I had analysis paralysis because, okay, we're talking about traveling. We're going to new countries we've never been to before. We need clothes for different seasons and I didn't know what to keep and what to get rid of and I really struggled with that. Plus, I hate to waste and I had stuff that I hadn't finished using yet and I didn't want to just throw it away but it's not like I could bring everything with me, obviously, so it was a challenge. Yeah, unlike me, I just threw everything away and then regretted a couple things later like the charger for one of my electronic devices that I accidentally threw away and now I'm trying to sell that without a charger. We did build capsule wardrobes, so this is what we're wearing now, which is actually really helpful. It helped us get organized but also we found that once we threw away a bunch of other crap that we already had a nice foundation for our capsule wardrobe so we actually did not have to buy a lot of new stuff, which is really nice because now I don't ever want to buy anything again. We are really reaping the benefits of gentle minimalism now and the first reason is because we're actually going to save money. Well, first of all, we're going to make money back on what we already spent but now because we don't have all that stuff and we're not going to be buying because believe me, I do not want to do this again. We're going to save money. Yeah, it's a lot more affordable to not buy stuff you don't really need and it's also a lot cheaper. You don't have to worry about storing it or shipping it. A lot of people ship containers to Ecuador or other countries. It costs $10,000 or more and it's an extremely stressful process. It can take months. It can cost a lot more than what you're planning. You might have to pay bribes or other unexpected expenses and there could be a delay so you might have to pay to store it. It is so expensive to ship your stuff and then we've heard from people that the stress is not worth it. We've had several people tell us that if they had to do it all over again, they would have just sold all of their stuff so you got to really be attached to what you want to bring to another country with you. Plus, we have friends who decided that they didn't like Ecuador so they decided to ship all their stuff back to the United States which is also very costly. Another benefit of gentle minimalism is it's just less stressful in general. You can pick up and move easily if you want to. It's really easy to rent furnished places in other countries. You may not get exactly what you want or have the exact furniture you want but you don't have to deal with selling a bunch of stuff and moving it to another country if you decide you don't want to stay there. Another benefit is that you'll be more mobile and flexible because the world is a mess right now so you really may want to get out there and travel more and find where you like and if you don't like some place you can just leave. Yeah, mother nature and our crazy world leaders are kind of making places that used to be hot spots for expats. Those places are not very desirable anymore so if you choose one of those places and something unexpected happens, if you're a gentle minimalist you can just leave on a moment's notice and not have to worry about anything. Now let's talk about some tips for downsizing. The first is to digitize all your photos and documents. We actually haven't done this yet. Those boxes are still at our parents' houses but we do plan on doing that next time we go back. What I found extremely helpful is to pack the stuff up that you haven't used in a while in a box or in a bag, put it aside so put it out of your line of sight and then just leave it there. If you don't end up getting into that box then you don't really need that stuff so you should just ditch it. Yeah and take your time doing this. Amelia took a lot of time. She went through her stuff several times, multiple passes and getting rid of stuff each time that she went through. I just got rid of it all at once. I just went through everything all at once in one Saturday and got rid of all of it. I was a little bit regretful about a couple things but that that worked for me. It really depends on your personality what will work best for you. I like doing it my way. This can be a challenge and you may feel a bit uncomfortable and you may feel kind of guilty about being wasteful and getting rid of all of that stuff. I know that I did. Yeah from my perspective though the waste actually occurred when we bought the stuff that we didn't need in the first place and getting rid of it feels very cleansing. It's like getting rid of the evidence of the waste. I completely agree. Now that it's done I feel so much better. My brain is feels better because I'm so organized and I feel a lot lighter. Now the real challenge is not slipping back again. Unconventionals I am putting it out there that is not going to happen. If you found this video helpful then check out this one next. And if you've already gone through the downsizing process or if you're struggling to let go of stuff let us know about that in the comments below. And if you're really struggling then join us over on Patreon for more support. Before you go leave us a like and we will see you all in our next video. Ciao. Ciao.