Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Review: More Than Enough

Do you guys follow Miranda at Live Free Creative Co? I've followed her for a while now, and I really, really like her. I like how deeply she thinks about things, I like the way she lives her life just going for her dreams and doing what makes her happy, and I like a lot of things about her style (even though it is very opposite of mine). So when she wrote a book and announced an open invitation to join her launch team for the release of said book this summer, I thought, why not? I want to read the book anyway, and it'll be summer! I'll have plenty of time to read and review it!

Well, the original release date was June 25th, which then got pushed back to July 9th, which is when I was supposed to be telling you all about this book. But my summer has been just a little bit busier than I anticipated, and clearly I'm behind. But, better late than never, right? Right!

Okay, here's the backstory on this book. Miranda, her lawyer husband (maybe another reason I like her, she's married to a lawyer too), and three kids are living their normal modern lives in a nice big beautiful home in Austin, Texas (oh yes, another Texas ex-pat!), basically living out the American dream, when at the beginning of 2017 she has this big epiphany/idea. She was looking around at their big beautiful home, and especially at all the stuff they had filled it up with, and thought, "We seriously have everything we need. We have more than enough. We should stop buying stuff!" So they did. For an entire year, her family stopped buying non-consumable items completely. No new clothes. No home decor items. No new technology. No new toys. To complicate the "Challenge" (as she refers to it), they moved half-way through the year to Virginia (or North Carolina? somewhere over there, I forget), and ended up downsizing drastically. So what started as a practice in not adding to their stuff also became a process of getting rid of as much of their stuff as they possibly could.

So after their year of no spending, she decides to write a book about their experience, which I have now read, called More Than Enough: How One Family Cultivated a More Abundant Life Through a Year of Practical Minimalism. Let's talk about this book, because I have a lot of thoughts about it. I followed her blog throughout the year of her big "Challenge," so I wondered how much I would actually get out of the book, and while much of the story was familiar to me, there was still quite a bit of reflection/lesson-drawing that gave me plenty to chew on. So, in no particular order, here are some of my thoughts about the book.

I spent the first part of the book wondering if I was the target audience for her message. First off, I absolutely do not identify at all with the type of retail therapy or impulse shopper she seems to be speaking to as a universal audience. Spending money actually makes me feel anxious, I'm not generally the type of person to stray off my intended list (and I always have a list), and I never go to stores "just for fun." I'm not sure I've set foot in a Target since moving to Kansas (there was a Target across the street from us in Houston, which made it more convenient, but now that I actually have to drive to any store I go to, I stick to the generally cheaper and closer Walmart). Maybe I'm different than most people this way, but I generally do not enjoy shopping, so her insights about the time and money she was saving by not doing all this impulse/therapy shopping didn't really resonate with me.

Second, I also found her general class privilege (and lack of awareness about it) a little off-putting. She never talks about her family's income (although it's clear that they have a very comfortable upper-middle-class income), and only spends one short chapter on money (in which it became glaringly obvious that our attitudes and opinions about money are extremely different), and at points it felt to me like she was only speaking to people who have the privilege of choosing between buying more cute Anthropology plates or going on fabulous European vacations (choose less stuff, more adventure!) without really acknowledging that for many people, the actual choice is between less stuff and more debt.

So I kept thinking, am I the target audience for this? Is she really only speaking to people with so much financial security they don't have to worry about money, only about the philosophical costs of materialism? And here's where I had my epiphany: Just because I am not buying things because of budget constraints and she is not buying things because of philosophy doesn't meant I can't use her philosophy to feel better about my own position and heal my own relationship to stuff! Maybe I should've seen this from the beginning, but really, maybe I can benefit even more from her insights than someone who is not so worried about their budget! I think the mindset shift for me can be summed up like this, "I don't buy all the things right now because of my budget, but even if I had all the money in the world, I would still choose to limit what I spend money on because less stuff really does make me happier" or something like that.

(*I also just want to stress here that we are in no way in real financial difficulties, my husband makes a great salary and we are probably considered upper-middle-class as well. We never lack for basics, we own a nice house with very nice things that fill it up, and we occasionally take those fabulous European vacations too, just with a lot more budgeting and saving and financial number crunching in the meantime. I don't want to pretend we are in any way super constrained, I just generally approach all of my shopping from a place of budget-awareness, while Miranda on the other hand doesn't seem to have or need a budget, or at least doesn't seem worried about one as she literally has a chapter titled "It's Not About the Money.")

After having this epiphany, I began enjoying the book quite a bit more and began to see the ways all of her insights were very useful for me. So here are some of my biggest take-aways:

What Does It Mean To Have Enough?

This was a question I mulled over quite a bit while reading. Miranda began her "Challenge" because of her realization that she had more than enough. She had a craft room bursting with supplies and storage bins with all sorts of extras and was sure that should any materialistic need arise, they could craft what they needed. She tells stories of all the things they did end up making, clay toys and make-shift Pokemon card binders among other things, using and re-using stuff they already had.

I, however, do not have a bursting collection of craft supplies (not a crafter, don't own a sewing machine, etc.), and went through my Marie Kondo phase pretty seriously a few years ago, so really don't have a lot of "extra" stuff. When we upgraded from our two bedroom apartment to our four bedroom house two years ago, we had several rooms that remained embarrassingly bare for quite a while, and I still feel like there is a never ending list of house projects I would love to spend money on. But I did give some serious thought to the question of, were I to do some version of this challenge myself, would we have "enough" to survive without buying any non-consumable goods? ...

And the answer, I think, is yes. I mean, it would require some creative work arounds. There are a few things we know we plan to purchase in the next few months: a bed for our toddler (she's still in the crib, and I guess she could continue sleeping in the crib indefinitely, but really, there comes a point, and I think by her third birthday it's reasonable to get her a real bed, right?), and a suit for my oldest son (he's getting baptized in December, and maybe a suit isn't entirely necessary, but some sort of new winter-appropriate Sunday clothing situation will probably be necessary given his growth this summer). There will probably be some other clothing and shoe purchases for the kids that will feel urgent. But in the end, we could find a way around each one of these purchases. Not indefinitely, but for a year, we really could probably manage it.

Does that mean we have enough?

One thing that Miranda wrote that really stuck with me is that "Enough wasn't an amount. It was a decision." So I think the answer to the question above is yes. If we decided it, then we have enough. We have enough so that we could mostly comfortably live for a year without buying a single new non-consumable.

And that was a really, really nice thing to realize. We have enough. It also made me feel incredibly grateful to realize that, which brings me to my next take-away...

Gratitude Really is Soooooo Important

Miranda spends a chapter talking about gratitude and it's importance. She was actually playing a Pollyanna-ish gratitude game with her children during a trip to Costco, in which she reminded them of all the great toys and things they already had to be grateful for (like an iPad and trampoline), and I remember thinking, "Well, my kids don't even have any of that stuff, but I'm actually grateful that we don't!"

But really, a focus on gratitude for what you already have makes you feel less covetous for you don't have. I know I have an actual physical list of all the things I know I want to buy for our house once we save up the money for it (starting with the new dresser to finish off our bedroom make-over, to a grill for the deck, to new kitchen counter-tops, and a whole bunch of other things), and focusing on that list just makes me feel the sense of lack. But I also feel incredibly grateful for all the beautiful things we do have, and focusing on those feelings of gratitude will lead to more overall peace and contentment in life. Miranda offers great practical tips at the end of every chapter, but I think the gratitude practice suggestions at the end of this chapter were my favorite.

Other Random Tid-bits

-I loved her suggestion to build community through borrowing. I've been the recipient of lots of good hand-me-downs when it comes to baby and kid clothes, which I love beyond anything, but there are lots of other things that can be shared too (books, tools, fancy dishes, etc.) and I'd love to tap into that kind of community borrowing more than I do.

-I loved her thoughts about creativity in minimalism. I still feel some conflicts here (what if you are creating products/content meant to be consumed by others, how do we balance that with respect for our consumers need for minimalism?), but I still whole-heartedly agree that the best way to really suck the marrow out of life is to create stuff (my stuff usually involves creating with words, but occasionally involves refinishing a chair!).

-I also really appreciated her chapter on time and energy as resources. I feel like in a lot of time management literature, energy levels don't get talked about enough as a crucial part of productivity. I love the way Miranda brought up how much time and energy it takes to earn the money you are spending on stuff. Is the stuff really worth the energy you put into making that money? Does the stuff just sap more of your energy? Good questions.

-And finally, I just appreciated in general how this was a minimalism book that focused on controlling what you bring into the home, as opposed to most minimalism books that focus on getting rid of what you already have. I think this is an important part of minimalism, not bringing the junk home in the first place.

In summary, I really appreciated all of the thoughtful insights and suggestions Miranda presented in her book, and I'm also just really happy for her that she wrote it and made this book happen (she really is living her dreams). After analyzing our spending tracking for the first two quarters of 2019, my husband and I need to do a little belt tightening to meet our savings goals for this year, and I think this book gave me just the motivation I needed to feel grateful for that instead of frustrated. It's true that for me it's far more encouraging to think about budgeting in terms of not bringing excess clutter into our lives than in thinking of it as restriction.

Here's to minimalism! Here's to deciding that we have enough! Here's to gratitude for a beautiful and wonderful life!


  1. I requested that my library buy this one, and I am now anxiously awaiting it! I'm glad for your review (since it means I'll hopefully go in with the open mindset it took you a few chapters to get, since I likely would have had the exact same initial reaction). I've read a lot of books on minimalism and simplifying, but this one sounds like it will still be different enough to be worth my while :) Great review!

    1. If you like Miranda's blog/podcast, you'll probably enjoy the book. It really has some good insights in it!

  2. This sounds like a great way to look at things. Like you I don't get pleasure from shopping, but I am learning to weigh the cost of ownership as a significant part of a purchase decision. And that means where I will keep it, how long it will stick around, and will I have to move it?

    1. Exactly! That is a lot about what she writes about in the book, what is the real cost of owning things? It's always good stuff to be thinking about.