Having kids can make it hard to live as a minimalist. An overabundance of clothing, books, and toys from well-meaning friends and family can cause your home to be cluttered and unorganized. The chaos can lead the whole household to become stressed and overwhelmed.
As a mom, you don’t have to deprive your child of their needs or entertainment to achieve a minimalist-inspired home. This article will explain how you can have a happier home and family.
What Minimalism with Kids Isn’t
Before getting into how to achieve a minimalist-inspired home as a mom, it’s essential to know what being a minimalist with kids doesn’t mean.
Minimalism with children isn’t:
- Donating most of their toys
- Shredding family photos
- Selling televisions or beloved furniture
- Limiting food or snacks in the house
- Giving everyone seven outfits to choose from
As tempting as it is to get rid of everything, taking drastic measures will leave you and your kids missing the things you love.
Steps to Achieve a Minimalist-Inspired Home
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by stuff, there are several steps you can take to make your home a more peaceful place.
Invest in Concealed Storage
Sometimes, even when you eliminate what you can, your home can still feel busy with everything children need. One thing that can make your home feel more minimalist is investing in concealed storage.
There are various furniture pieces out there you can store items in. These enable you to store necessary things when you’re not using them, helping keep your rooms less cluttered.
Remove Things You Don’t Use
It’s easy to keep things around your home “just in case,” but that leads to filled closets and shelves that make your rooms feel claustrophobic. An excellent habit of maintaining a minimalist-inspired home is removing the things you don’t use that aren’t emergency items.
For example, you might not use your fire extinguisher regularly — at least, hopefully not! It’s still good to keep around in case of an accident. That sweater banished to the back of your closet won’t be saving any lives. It’s time to let it go.
Kids tend to tire of toys and grow out of clothes quickly, so it’s easier to identify what they don’t need around anymore. It’s essential to involve your children in sorting and removing their items. Explain how it could bring joy to another kid when they donate something they don’t enjoy anymore.
If you’d prefer to sell a child’s item, they can help with the process and learn about exchanging money for goods. Something beyond repair can show your kids how removing broken toys or clothes helps make room for new ones.
These concepts can apply to any area of your home. Your expensive couch? Keep it if it fits the room. Have 50 coffee mugs? Start by saying goodbye to at least half. Your whole family might be amazed at how much better it feels once you make more space.
Meal Planning
Having a minimalist-inspired home doesn’t mean depriving yourself or your children of the meals and snacks they love. However, meal planning can help reduce the amount of groceries that would likely go to waste.
You can start with dinner. Let the whole family participate in making meal selections for the week and provide them with options that they can take turns picking from. Everyone can then reference the choices on a calendar or whiteboard.
Make a grocery list of the ingredients you need for each meal and stick to the list, even when the store’s distractions tempt you. If you bring your kids along, you can occupy them by putting them in charge of finding different items to put into the cart.
If possible, incorporate everyone into the meal-making process. Your children can take pride in their work from planning to completion — and it saves you some steps.
The whole meal planning process is an excellent way to use up groceries while teaching your kids about different food groups, grocery shopping, and preparing food.
Create Capsule Wardrobes
When you have children, laundry is a lot. A capsule wardrobe is a limited amount of clothing that can create many different outfits. They usually have a color scheme to ensure many of the items work together.
For adults, that means having no more than a few of each necessary item, like blouses, pants and blazers. Kids are a little trickier since they grow quickly and fall in love with various colors and characters.
A great way to keep your children’s clothes manageable is to contain them in one closet or dresser. Eliminate items as your kids grow out of them and don’t buy new ones until there’s space for them. When there is room for new clothes, allow your children to help find unique pieces to fill the wardrobe.
An important note is not to purchase new furniture to store clothing unless you are already short on space. Capsule wardrobes can save you money and space.
Having a Minimalist-Inspired Home
Having a minimalist-inspired home as a mom can be challenging. Still, you can create a cleaner and calmer environment by reducing clutter and getting the whole family involved.
