As a minimalist, I have shared a couple of videos about 10 things I dont buy anymore and for this video today
I thought it'd be fun to turn it around and share 10 things
I wish I hadn't bought. So things that I thought will make me happy, but didn't.
Before we begin, I'd like to give a quick shout out and big thank you to everyone who
already signed up for my new online course called In Love With Your Life
20 weeks to simplify your life and amplify your happiness. It fills me with incredible
joy to see all these people already signing up, and starting to simplify their life.
So if you want more info about it, I will leave a link in the description.
I am having really hot
ginger tea and my cup is way too full as you can see, so I hope this will work out.
I have 10 things that I wasted money on for this video and I really expect that
most of you will recognize
at least some of these. And I want to share the lessons that I learned from it going forward. And it's going to be a
very real talk honest type of video because some of these things I bought after I went minimalist. And you know,
no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, that's not an issue. So let's just learn from them going forward.
Here we go. The first is expensive clothing from trendy brands. When I was younger, in my teens mostly, and early 20s
I was pretty insecure about the things that I was wearing. And
I would really often go shopping and I would always bring some new items home with me.
What mattered was not how they were produced or how they fit my personality.
Or how they made me feel even. What mattered was, are they in style right now? Because I wanted to be
trendy and I wanted to fit in. As I'm sure many people are at that age
I was pretty insecure.
I would often compare my looks to those of the popular girls around me and I would often feel like I didn't measure up.
And one of the ways that I tried to deal with these feelings was going shopping and trying to copy what was considered stylish.
Usually these items were pretty pricey
It was not like I was buying Gucci or Chanel or anything like that.
But the items were kind of pricey, considering the fact that I still was going to school and I was working a weekend job. and
Ironically, shopping never helped me to feel more confident at all.
It only made me focus on other things that I didn't have yet. Or that
my looks were not good enough. And I just felt like the same person with the same insecurities
But in an expensive sweater or in expensive shoes.
The moment that I started to feel more confident was actually a moment that I stopped shopping so much.
Instead of looking at what other people look like. I started to get to know myself better.
I started to tune in and see what I
liked and what I find important in clothing. And what I feel good in, and what fits my personality.
And I am much more secure and confident now. And I realized that I don't need to have anything than I already have.
So when we start to look inward and make our own decisions...
that is the moment we stop caring so much about our appearance and what other people think of us. And that will help us
so much more with confidence than shopping does.
I'm curious if you recognize this at all.
Or if you have any items of your own that you regret spending money on, so leave that in the comments.
Next is an expensive phone.
And the phone that I'm talking about is the one that I got when it was recently released
It was the Samsung s6 edge and I got it new at the time.
I'm still using this phone to this day, three and a half years later.
So right now it's fully paid off and it's actually really cheap. I have aSim only, it's only about
$8 a month, but when I got this phone it was new and it was expensive.
So how I got it is, at the time my boss told me that I could pick out a phone to use as a work
phone and then they would pay for the monthly bills.
And of course, I got a little greedy and I chose the newest model.
But what happened was right after that I switched jobs.
And I was stuck with a two-year contract on that phone that I had to start paying for myself.
And paying so much money for that phone every month was just such a waste of money.
And unfortunately, the way technology is nowadays they make it so that it promotes quick replacements.
Either they break pretty quickly or they change something like the charger that not compatible anymore.
Snd so a lot of these things end up in landfills.
What I try to do now is make my technology last for as long as I possibly
can, and if there's anything I can do to fix or replace something...
I will do that first.
And I only buy something new if it really makes the most sense. And if I would buy a new phone now
I would always just go for the one that is one or two
models older than the latest model. Because for me they do just as good of a job and they're much more affordable.
Next up is souvenirs.
We don't really travel that often or
extensively
but sometimes we travel. And we've been to some cool places like Iceland and Japan. And whenever we used to go on vacation
I would spend a lot of my time
there
looking for souvenirs. And of course a lot of money, and then the added stress of having to pack everything back into your suitcase somehow
to bring back with you. And we wouldn't be buying souvenirs for ourselves only, I was also really on the lookout for
souvenirs that I could buy as a gift to bring back with me and give to people. And if we couldn't find something that was
really nice
I would get a little stressed and I would just basically just buy something random to give to people.
But what I realized is that even if a trip means a lot to us...
it doesn't necessarily mean that much to others. And getting some random thing from a country that they haven't been to will
probably not mean that much to people. So now we only buy souvenirs if we happen to chrome across an item
that's
absolutely perfect in every way and that really fits our home or the person that we want to give it to, and that is really
worth it. But we don't go out looking anymore.
And that is a big difference, and it made our trips much more enjoyable stress-free.
And of course a lot cheaper. Next is wasting money on music festivals.
I went through a phase where I thought that I should be able to enjoy going to music festivals in the summer.
It's kind of like this social pressure that festivals have, they represent
freedom and youth and fun, and I just thought that everyone should do them or you're just boring.
Looking back on it now, I let that pressure and get to me and I went. Now you may know this about me....
but I don't do large crowds that well. And I cannot handle loud music. I do really enjoy music
but I don't listen to dance music.
I do really enjoy going to a concert
every now and then, from a band that I am really a big fan of and that I absolutely love
but when I go to a music festival
there was usually only one band that I kind of liked and I've even been to places where I didn't like any of the music.
But it was just kind of the cool thing to do. And when you go to a concert, it is still very loud
of course and very crowded.
But they only take a few hours.
And then afterwards I can just return to my own quiet space, and I would have had a really good time.
So that's okay.
But festivals usually take an entire day, and they would just drain the life out of me and I would feel so unhappy.
And out of place and really question: Why am I here?
And I think this relates to a bigger issue of just being okay with who you are and accepting what you do and don't like.
Music festivals are just not my thing and it doesn't mean that I am boring. And maybe around four or five years ago
I came to a place where I could just fully accept that and say with confidence that I don't like to go to these things.
Next one is going to be short and that is uncomfortable shoes.
I used to be someone who I thought enjoys wearing high heels, and I would always buy these
high-heeled shoes that were either just very uncomfortable or
downright painful. Or I
even had some platform shoes that I felt I could break an ankle in if I stepped in them the wrong way.
I would also order them online a lot of the time
so most of them didn't really fit right either. Bottom line, if it is painful or just very uncomfortable, it's not worth it.
I want to look good but comfort is important as well.
And now I just much prefer sneakers over high heels in terms of style as well.
Next is a really low quality yoga mat.
I am a big believer of when you take up a new hobby or you try something new, not
investing too much money in it straight away and first seeing if you really like doing it.
So when I decided to take up yoga, I bought a really crappy
low quality yoga mat.
And the problem was that I didn't do my research that well, and I was actually quite expensive for how bad it was.
And if I had spent only 10% more or 20% more, I would have had a decent beginner yoga mat.
And this one I've had to replace after only a few uses. So that was just money down the drain.
So if you're going to take up a new hobby, then it's great
not invest too much money until you are sure that this is something that you actually like, but do your research because
then you won't end up buying something really crappy. Next on the list of things
I wish I hadn't bought was high maintenance
clothing. Now along with the pricey trendy items that I used to buy and all these high-heeled shoes
I also used to buy a lot of high maintenance clothing.
Dry-cleaning is not something that is done very much here in the Netherlands. It's also pretty expensive.
But I would buy items that could not be washed in a washing machine or will just get very
wrinkled very fast. And I couldn't even enjoy wearing them, because I was always afraid that something might stain them or they get stretched out
things like that.
So I would hand wash these items, which was a real hassle.
And then they would stay wet for days and days and days and I couldn't use the line dryer during that time because of course
they had to line dry flat. And it's just not worth it.
And now I buy clothing that I can just treat normally and actually enjoy wearing. Next is extra furniture for storage space.
So about a year after we moved into this apartment
we were already living a minimalist lifestyle at the time,
we thought it would be fun to have some extra storage space in our living room in the form of furniture.
So we bought this square open cabinet that we just basically filled with random things and
about maybe a year year and a half ago...
I was just so tired of that thing that we ended up donating it again.
Now the problem with storage space is that of course...
You don't want to have too little, because then your home can get really cluttered.
But if you have too much
Then you automatically find a way to fill it up with more stuff. And I am just so much happier now that it's gone.
I enjoy that empty space a lot more than the things that used to be in there.
Next is non cruelty free beauty products. And this is one that I really regret buying.
I talked about it before in a previous video
But basically I thought that they would be cruelty free because these brands were producing the products in Europe.
But what I didn't know was that they were still testing them on animals for selling them in China.
So I'll leave that video down below for you if you want more info, but basically what I did was just switching over my entire
cosmetics and beauty products regimen over to
companies that were really producing these products in a cruelty-free way. Because I just don't want to attribute to animal testing for
cosmetics in any way if I can avoid it. And last thing that I regret buying is all kinds of different cocktail glasses...
wine glasses and miscellaneous items.
So when we moved in here, I wanted to have all the special glasses.
So I want to have red wine, white wine glasses, champagne glasses...
I wanted to have all kinds of different cocktail glasses, gin and tonic glasses, everything.
Because I thought that we would be hosting cocktail parties or something
really frequently. And I would want to serve the drinks in the glass that fits the drink. After a couple of years...
surprise surprise, these glasses were hardly ever used.
Making cocktails is pretty time-consuming. It's also quite expensive.
We do do it occasionally for a couple of friends, but just not enough.
Also, we don't really drink wine or champagne ourselves.
So these glasses were just sitting there taking up a lot of space. And I just thought after a while, you know
if I'm gonna have a cocktail, I'll just serve it in this pretty tumbler. We have four of them
So it's enough. And they taste exactly the same. So we ended up donating all these glasses.
I think this one comes down to just not caring so much about what other people think of you and just doing your own thing.
And I personally don't think it's that important to serve things in a correct glass.
So I shouldn't care when people come over either. If you liked the video
please give it a thumbs up to support the channel.
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If you're interested, check out my Simplify Your Life course, link in the description. And I wish you all a lovely day, a really good
weekend, and I'll see you next week again. Bye. Bye
