Category: Essays

I may be a minimalist, but I a firm believer in being prepared. “Being prepared” often means having supplies that we might not use on a regular basis. But instead, having things we might only use occasionally according to certain patterns in our life, and even some emergency supplies. These things may still hold value even though we don’t use them often; just so long as they don’t take up much space or require any maintenance.

 

With that being said, there is no better place to keep these supplies than our automobile. Why? Because with minor exception, wherever we go, our vehicle is always with us. Most of us should be more familiar with our vehicles than we are with our own homes.

 

In the past I have often found myself in situations away from home, when I needed a specific tool or item, but it was not accessible to me. So one day I decided make a list of these items (and added in some emergency items),  and add them as permanent cargo in my car. Fortunately “being prepared” doesn’t require that we carry a lot of cargo. I can fit everything I need in a 12″ x 12″ x 18″ milk crate. So I did, and I am sure we all can too.

My supplies are as follows:

1. Tiny first aid kit
2. Jumper cables (everybody needs them sooner or later)
3. Large towel
4. Small tarp
5. Duck tape
6. Pocket knife
7. Rope
8. Tire Iron
9. Sanitary wipes
10. Small mirror
11. Sling Bag
12. Afghan
13. 12″ x 12″ x 18″ milk crate

 

 

I am going to assume that everyone knows the value of most of the items on my list, but there are a few that may require some explanation.

 

Giant Towel – I once read a sci-fi comedy novel called “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” that made a very accurate statement. “A towel is the best multi-purpose tool in the galaxy.” Wellll, in the world anyway. Here are just some of the uses I can think of off the top of my head:

• to dry (duh)
• shelter/warmth
• A flag (or more specifically “TO flag”)
• blanket
• weapon/flail (insert rock)
• short rope
• pillow
• wound dressing
• tourniquet

A simple online search will reveal more than 120 specific uses for a towel, but most of those uses are for the same function and therefore fall into one of the above categories.

Small Tarp – A towel is porous , a tarp is not. So in many ways a tarp is by far a better tool for shelter.

Small mirror – Besides the typical use (which is valuable too), its good for seeing in unreachable areas. Also valuable for long distance signaling (reflect the sunlight at someone far away to get their attention).

Afghan – My family and I often find ourselves in a situation where we desire a lawn blanket to sit on to enjoy a concert, festival, or any outdoor show. This may not be valuable to everybody, but we use ours constantly.

Sling bag – One never knows when they will have to lug around some supplies while keeping their hands free. When not in use a sling bag is easy to store. We find we use this as often as the afghan. Often at the same time.

As we can see, the milk crate stores everything nicely in the trunk taking up very little space. My bicycle rack on the other hand  is a very different story. But everything fits nicely in my tiny Hyundai Accent.

 

Just as a general principle, it is wise to store any supplies that we might need when we are away from home, in our vehicles. Besides the milk crate in the trunk, I also keep my car registration, insurance card, sunglasses, glasses cleaning cloth, and work badge in my overhead visor pouch. There is no reason any of these things should be in the home. Keeping them in the home just increases the chance of not having them when I need them. In the glove-box I just keep a tiny umbrella, gloves, the car manual, and a window scraper (for the winter).

 

 

A minimalist needs very little, to have a full life. This concept is amplified when it comes to a minimalist going on vacation; He/she needs close to nothing for vacation. Just bare necessities.

Here is my procedure for vacation packing.

When it comes to packing for vacation, I always start with the wardrobe and toiletries. It helps to think of our “needs list” in order from head to toe. My list looks something like:

1. Cap/hat (maybe)
2. Hair brush
3. Hair product (if there is any formal event)
4. Prescription glasses
5. Contact lenses, spare lenses, case, and solution
6. Q-tips for ears (depending on how long the vacay is)
7. Tooth brush, paste, and floss
8. Razor and shave cream (depending on how long the vacay is)
9. Deodorant
10. Climate appropriate shirts*
11. Climate appropriate pants (JEANS, and jean shorts mostly)*
12. Underwear*
13. Socks*
14. Climate appropriate footwear (not more than two pair …. and one of them I am wearing)
15. Plastic trash bag to hold all the dirty clothes
16. Collapsible travel bag (backpack) and sling bag
17. All the typical necessities one must have with them at all times which nowadays includes:  Wallet/purse, smart phone (with charger and ear buds), maybe sunglasses.

*The quantities of these match the number of days I will be on vacation, capping off at seven; except for jeans. Two pair of jeans and/or jean shorts are plenty for an entire week. In the event we run out of clean clothes or an accident happens and we need more, most hotels have a washing facility.

And that’s 90% of what I pack. Easy pa-cheesy. The rest is just a few destination specific items. Example: If my vacation is a beach vacation (and it usually is), I would pack a beach towel, trunks, tanning goggles, and sunblock. It is important to weigh whether it is more worth renting/buying these items once we reach the destination than bringing them with us.

Example: It could be a pain to lug a beach chair around everywhere just so you can use it once when we are finally at the beach, when we can rent a beach chair AT the beach for only $5. Usually those chairs are better built anyway. If the cost to rent these things is cheap enough, it’s not even worth owning them in the first place. Usually one can rent a chair and umbrella at most beaches (beach umbrella’s are really hard to lug around). These are items that usually break in a couple of years anyway. It never pays to own them unless we live on the beach.

I then pack all these items in a 1’x 1′ x 2.5′ bag.

 

Now for planning the vacation itself. This is very important to do, but again, this also should be very light. Obviously we want to book all the things that need to be booked (flight, hotel, time sensitive events), but beyond that we should only have a good knowledge foundation of all that our vacation destination has to offer. We should educate ourselves on all the upcoming events, activities, popular places, and dining that our destination has to offer. After that, just a general outline of all the things we want to do will suffice.

It’s been my experience that when we create to rigid a schedule for vacation, we end up always in a rush to fit in as much as we can; and often times we miss something. Also, our vacation turns into a chore, a job. Furthermore, when we follow the narrow path we set for ourselves, we often put blinders on, thereby closing ourselves off from other opportunities that present themselves which we might enjoy even more; we leave no room for spontaneity.

Other Vacation Tips:

• If the trip is only a week or less, don’t even bother to unpack the luggage. take things out only as you need them. Why waste the time and effort of actually putting everything in drawers and cabinets.
• Toiletries. If you are going to a hotel, they already have shampoo and soap. If they don’t, body-wash serves both functions. So a tiny bottle of that will do.
• I can’t believe there are people who still don’t use EZ pass.
• No laptop computers unless we have to. Despite the fact that they are laptop, they’re still a hassle to lug around. Not to mention they can get stolen. Doesn’t a good smartphone serve most of its functions anyway?
• I mention above that I bring a back pack and sling bag. Well, If you are on vacation there is always a change you are going to have some cargo when walking around. Whether we are bringing amenities to the beach (towel, sunscreen, etc), or we are cruising the strip shopping, it is convenient to have a hands free carryall that we don’t have to pay much attention to. A sling bag cannot hold as much, but it is so much more compact. When not in use it can be folded up and put in our jeans pocket.
• If we are not staying at a hotel, trash disposal may be a concern. So for this circumstance, I recommend packing a couple industrial sized trash bags. Load them up, and throw them in a dumpster. Any dumpster.
• Vacation in places where everything is in walking distance from each other. I have found that too much time is wasted in transit during a vacation from one event to another. It kinda breaks the momentum of enjoyment.

A large part of minimizing, is streamlining the basic maintenance tasks of life. Basically, making chores and tasks simpler so we can get them done and get back to doing the things we want to do, back to our passions. In no other aspect of life it this easier than in our preparation of meals.

We have got to eat; there is no way around that. It’s necessary for survival. But as humans many of us spend an excessive amount of time to prepare meals. There is: grocery shopping, storing food, cooking, preparing, then of course eating. The only thing we actually want to do in all of this is eat the food. And it’s not even that we want to do it, it’s that we need to. Everything before that, is just necessary steps to getting to that final destination. So the question is: Can we shorten or even eliminate any of those steps leading up to eating.

 

damn skippy

 

I’ve got one word to sum up a better way to acquire and prepare food: BULK

 

That’s right, bulk. Why do a chore twice a week for a small amount, when we can do it once a week for twice that amount? (rhetorical). We save great time by doing it this way, and often save money as well.

 

Let’s start at the beginning. With grocery shopping.

First, don’t go grocery shopping hungry. We tend to buy too much excess food we seldom eat because our hunger compels us to (junk food). Or worse; we buy the excess food and we DOOOOO eat it.

Second, shop to stock up on enough supplies so that we don’t have to shop again for a long time; buy in bulk. There are many grocery stores that have food and food supplies that they sell in bulk. Stores like BJ’s Wholesale Club, Sam’s Club, and Costco exist for that purpose. By shopping this way we save time in not making multiple trips to the grocery store. We save money in gas money for those trips. Also, buying in bulk is just cheaper because food companies want you to buy more. So to make their product more attractive it will always be cheaper to buy one twelve pack of an item than it would be to buy twelve singles.

 

Food storage is the next task.

Unfortunately there is nothing seemingly minimalist about this minimalist’s food storage recommendation. My advice is simply: “Have enough space to store all these bulk items.”

“But Anthony, is not the idea of minimalism to reduce the amount of clutter in our homes/lives?” Not exactly. Minimalism, is eliminating the things in our lives that add no value to it. There are few things more valuable to us than food we intend to eat. That’s just survival.

 

Now for cooking.

Cook in bulk. In my home we take a couple of hours on Sunday to make a batch of food for the entire week. Slow cookers (Crock Pot) are good for this purpose. This usually doesn’t allow for much variety, but variety isn’t the goal here. Good health is. We eat to live, not live to eat people. 2 hours on a Sunday to cook beats 30 minutes all seven days of the week.

Or, we could just avoid cooking altogether. That’s right, we can eat fresh food from the vine. Fruits and vegetables. Sometimes all we need for a healthy meal is an apple, banana, blueberries, and small cup of yogurt. Heck, this is healthier than anything we can cook. To learn more, read up on the benefits of eating living food vs dead food. Get our enzymes.

 

Food preparation.

Being that we have cooked for the week all at once, we now have to portion it out. Containers containers containers …….. containers. Whether we use Tupperware or gladlock, make sure they seal well. Make sure we have enough of them. Personally I prefer Pyrex. Rubber and plastic are porous and therefore bacteria traps. But Pyrex is like glass, except extremely durable; neigh indestructible.

For those who are “9 to 5’ers” like me, I cannot stress enough the benefits of preparing your lunches at home and bringing them to work. Buying meals at work is a waste of money. For $10 in food items at the grocery store we can make enough meals for all 5 working days. If we order food at our jobs we could spend on average $10 each working day. So that’s $10*5=$50 a week. That is a $40 savings.

I am a big fan of low maintenance natural food. And I am by no means, a morning person; I’m a night owl. So during the weekdays I don’t even get up with enough time to prepare breakfast. NO WAY. But I do appreciate the importance of getting a good breakfast. It is for this reason that I keep oatmeal packets in my desk at work. When I go to work I bring my lunch box with my pre-prepared lunch and a banana. For breakfast I have my oatmeal and a banana (easy to prepare). For lunch, I microwave or broil in the toaster oven (just to reheat) whatever meal I put together on Sunday. Easy, not time-consuming, and Cheap. The only price we pay is in storage.