Moving is a great time to simplify your lifestyle. The key is to make time to be intentional. My husband, Brad, and I tried different things to be intentional stewards of the resources we have earned and have been blessed with. I’ve moved 10 times in my life, and the latest move we made took about three months to fully transition.
We have been married for nine years, and one thing I’m thankful for is my husband’s knack for Excel spreadsheets to plan out and track a budget. He made a budget template that we used to track our finances for three months before we were married, and then we developed a budget that we revisit and revise every year. Some years we do better than others, but in our last move, we really committed to being intentional. Here are some things that have worked for us:
Clothes
We are a little bit clutter-phobic, so storage bins and donation trips are my best friends. In 2019 I started a habit of Marie Kondo-ing my clothes. About 2-4 times a year, I take a long weekend and get rid of any clothes I haven’t worn in a year. My rule is for every piece of clothing I buy, I will donate a piece of clothing. In our latest move, I bagged up all my hanging clothes in trash bags with the hanger at the top. I leave them in my closet with just enough peeking through so that I can see them when deciding what to wear. Anything left hanging in the bags at the end of the season gets donated.
Wedding Registry
So many people were gracious to witness and support our wedding! We are thankful for them to this day. When we moved into our first basement apartment together, we only unpacked the items that we truly needed, like our bath towels, pots, pans, and utensils. In our second house, I unpacked a whole bin of towels that I had never opened, an unused set of knives, pots and pans, a set of dishes, and several sets of bedsheets. We saved them for when our first set got holes and achieved normal wear and tear.
Then, when we moved again, we donated about a third of everything we had collected through our college years in our kitchen and bedrooms. It felt like we were newlyweds again opening up fresh towels, kitchen utensils and bedsheets! In the latest house move, I also collected and organized all of our toiletries and cosmetic gifts that have piled up over the years. Christmas gifts, soaps, lotions, stocking stuffers, travel size toiletry items, Chapstick and dental floss are all in their own bins. We have yet to run out of lotion or travel-size toothpaste!
Furniture
Every piece of furniture (except a chair and a sofa) that we owned during our first eight years of marriage had been passed down from grandparents or parents, or were items we had acquired growing up. I told Brad I’d rather donate the pieces of furniture that we’ve used and appreciated and not fill up our new house with all the items that take up space that we knew we wouldn’t keep permanently. We developed a furniture budget of proceeds left over from selling our house, and we donated the furniture we didn’t want to keep. Then, I planned and scouted out exactly what furniture we wanted, comparing prices for months. That means we had some empty rooms for a while, and I loved all the space!
We took our time, and thankfully, Brad comes from a wood-working family, so he made bookshelves, tables, bed frames, picture frames, and chest of drawers over the years. It’s a work in progress, but we’re thankful to not feel cluttered like we would if we moved all of our hand-me-down furniture into the new house once we moved.
Groceries
Brad and I figured out what essentials we could minimize our budget down to within reason. We really like meal-prepping and have done that since we were newlyweds, but we always have a base of chicken, rice, beans, fresh spinach, blueberries, granola, and PB&J’s for our son on hand at the house. We have prioritized what foods we want and have a cash budget for everything I buy on a weekly or monthly basis. (It also helps that we don’t mind eating the same thing almost every week.) We shop for deals between Aldi, Walmart, Publix, and Target.
Cash Budget Accounts
For expenses, I have little cash en
velopes that we refill each month, and I’ll only pay in cash for eating out, groceries, clothes, entertainment, cleaning & yard, and school purchases. We’ve also budgeted for every birthday and holiday and made a separate account for the year with one card for all gift purchases. Finally, we have a separate account for tithing, giving and donating that an automatic 10% of our gross pay gets put into. Since I do most of the purchasing, having a finite amount of cash really helps me stick to the budget. Before we moved into our first house, we lived in the basement apartment of a retired family friend for several years to save up 20% on a down payment for a house. I’m so thankful for a husband who works hard and is intentional with planning even years ahead!
Other Fun Tips
In the meantime, I enter all the sweepstakes I can find, and sometimes I may even win gift cards! I’ve also tried a few different apps where you scan your receipts and have gotten a few bucks on Amazon, but I feel like it takes too long to rack up points on those, so I don’t think I’ll stick with them. I’m loving Facebook Marketplace and the consignment scene, too! We’re getting into thrifting and saving up to buy a few nice things instead of a lot of things we’ll just end up donating. Style Encore is probably my favorite place to shop currently, but I can never really leave TJ Maxx for long!
Birthdays & Rewards
We have a very strong-willed child who needs both rewards and consequences as we seek to “train him up in the way he should go.” We have a smiley face daily behavior chart that we send to daycare with him. After he gets a number of smiley faces, he can earn a little prize. We increase the amount of smiley faces he needs to get before he can get a reward. Rewards can range anywhere from gum, candy, and popsicles, to books or Dollar General toy prizes. We’ve gotten into a habit of saving toys that he gets for his birthday and Christmas and slowly giving them to him throughout the year.
It’s a good incentive but is not meant to be long term! Ultimately we want to train him to be on his best behavior out of love, not just for rewards. This is an ongoing conversation as we continue to train him and converse at every learning opportunity while evaluating motivations.
Entertainment
When we moved, we canceled all our streaming subscriptions and invested in a portable DVD player and radio/stereo. We go to 2nd & Charles once a month to pick out a couple of age-appropriate DVDs that L can watch. I’ve started listening to the radio more, and we’ve collected CDs over the years, so we are bringing the retro entertainment back! L will be four this year and has learned to love taking books and toys everywhere we go for entertainment, but having a DVD player helps on long rainy days!
Our Motivation
Of course, we try to remember that stuff is just stuff. Life on earth is temporary, and we are just stewards of what we have been given. We want to be mindful that it can all be taken away at any time. Having family close by to keep L helps us be better stewards of our time.
Time is the greatest resource we have. We exchange time for pleasure or for money, but at the end of the day, we want to live intentionally.
We’re so thankful for our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, whose stories and photos we keep at the forefront of our minds framed on top of the fireplace in our home. We never want to forget the sacrifice, the lifetime of hard work, and the love that they poured into us. We know they helped us learn the value of personal responsibility and investing in family for generations to come. Brad and I are both thankful for the opportunities our parents set us up for. We know that without the Lord’s grace, mercy, and blessing, and the sacrificial love of our families, we wouldn’t be where we are today!
