Living out of a backpack

I want to live with less. I don't like having to spend my time tidying my house. I've been reading two bloggers for about a while now called evbogue.com and mnmlist.com. Both of these guys live with a significantly smaller amount of things than I do and seem to get more enjoyment out of their lives.

I'm soon going to Florida with my wife for a holiday and everything I'm taking with me, I've decided, has to fit into my backpack. If I can manage for two weeks living out of a backpack, surely I can do it all the time. Plus, I will always know where things are when I need to find them. Obviously there are limitations as I also share things with my wife so I will only be doing this with things that are mine such as clothes, books etc.

I'm not trying to be a minimalist, I just want to streamline my possessions so that I can step lighter on the world. By living with less, I'll buy less things such as paper books, magazines, clothes, electronics and I'll be forced to think about my purchases as to whether something is truly useful or just something to look pretty.

According to CBS News, "80% of what we keep we never use and we wear 20% of the clothes we own 80% of the time". I have started this already by replacing 90% of my books on the shelf with buying a Kindle and getting electronic versions of them. I sold the paper versions at a car boot sale.

I'll keep you updated with how this plan comes along over the next couple of weeks.

--

Joel