Living Life to the Maximum

People think that my decision to declutter is my way of converting into a minimalist. On the contrary, doing this have made me into a maximalist--I want to use the things I have to the maximum and exhaust its potential. I have just recently adopted this lifestyle and let me tell you, this is not an easy path to take. Here's why:

1. Dilemma: I am a first time mother. An excited one at that. That means I have the tendency to shower my daughter with material things just because I think she needs them. The moment the pregnancy test showed two lines, I was in a need-to-shop-badly mode. This was aggravated by the discovery that my first child is going to be a girl--my own little doll! Imagine the amount of baby clothes I accumulated.

Lesson learned: Babies are all different, and my child--a low-maintenance one. Out of all the gifts she received during her aqeeqah, she only plays with two toys. That's it. Two toys out of all the many. The other ones, she likes to believe they are all teethers.

My action: I have requested my family to minimize the urge to shower Laika with toys. I have also stopped buying things that is not in the "need" column. Bumper pads and teething guards? Need. Cute dresses that she will most likely not enjoy? Want. After all, at her age, what she needs are non-material things.

Who needs three chairs? No one, I tell you. Although we have been using all of them most of the time. 

2. Dilemma: I am a girl. I was pre-programmed to like all things sparkling and beautiful especially if it starts with a sh- and ends with a -oes. I. Can't. Stop. Buying.

Solution: I bought a rack that can house just a dozen pairs of shoes. When I buy one pair, I have to give another pair up. This way, shoes are kept to a minimum. And I mostly stay at home now. No use owning too many when I am usually in a shirt-pants-slippers getup.

3. I love magazines. I also can't bear the thought of throwing one (as if I need to read it again or browse through one when I need inspiration. Hello, internet!).

Solution: E-subscription. This is one of the things I love about having an iPad mini. I can still enjoy magazines and books without worrying about clutter. I am no book purist. I am for reading a book even if I cannot touch book pages physically.

4. My husband is a doctor. Every time he has a convention, you can just imagine the amount of freebies he gets! I get a headache every single time I see him with ball pens, USBs and markers he doesn't even use!

Solution: I asked him to refrain from hoarding things just because it's free. One ball pen is enough. USBs are useful but who needs a lot of them? Markers? We will just buy when he needs one. I am not a snob. I just think there is no need getting things just for the sake of having one especially if it's free.

Those are just some of the things I can think of at present. What pushed me to declutter is now, I think of any space as a real estate property. When I need to throw something, I have to think of the last time I used it. There are times when I feel like I am wasting something but I am now choosing to think of it this way: The storage space that an object occupies can very well be used for something that is more useful. I can live in a smaller space but I can't because of the amount of stuff we have. Now, we have reduced the amount of our things and I can't wait to reduce it again in the future. I also disagree with the notion that you need to have a big storage space. Big storage space means more things you accumulate. At the end of the day, these things don't even get to be used. I say no to more storage, yes to proper place for everything.

Yey to plan reduction

Who wants to do a happy dance with me? In a completely permissible, halal way, of course! That means only with my girl friends with the door shut tight without any men in sight. Unless you are my husband, in that case, no other girls allowed to dance in front of him.

Just kidding!

But, seriously.

Anyway, the happy dance is for the e-mail I got last night from the telecom I am subscribed to. My cellphone bill decreased dramatically. As in, divide-last-month's-bill-by-three, that's how much! Woot, woot!

How did I do it?

Simple. I called customer service to have my plan reduced. I don't even remember to which plan I am subscribed to. I just know that I chose the lowest possible option without me having to pay for the phone that came with the subscription. Mind you, I have the simplest phone. I just didn't want to pay for it. I'm cheap like that! :P

By the way, since choosing to stay at home, I realized that I don't get to use my phone that much. Good thing there's Viber and Facebook and Twitter and Yahoo! Mail. So, yes, that's my way of saying I will most likely be able to read your messages to me through those than if you text me. 

PS: I have big plans for this blog. Stay tuned for that. 

Decluttering, anyone?

When I was pregnant, I was struck hard by the nesting syndrome. I felt the need to purge, purge, purge! 

My thinking was, if something does not have its own proper place, it does not belong to this house. I was so much struck that I was able to declutter and live with less than 15 pairs of shoes (that's modest, ask every girl you know) and four bags.

On a good day, meaning Sharon or I had to urge to clean up, our rented apartment looks like this.

The bamboo mat does not belong to the living room anymore

The master bedroom is divided into different areas as we live in a small place

However, if Monica Geller of FRIENDS has a Secret Closet, I have my Secret Room. Whenever I entertain guests in the house, the door to this room is shut very tightly.

It looks like this right now.

I KNOW!!!

Good thing when I accepted a certain thrift shop challenge, I was able to discover this beautiful place.

In time (I wonder when?), I want to be able to tackle my Secret Room and sell stuff at that Thrift Shop. I read somewhere that the philosophy when decluttering should be, if you were to move to a different place, what will you be bringing with you? And since we will really be moving before the year ends (in shaa Allah), all the more we need to do this.

Repeat after me: No more clutter. No more clutter. No more clutter.

The Young House Love Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge

Before I begin, I just want to apologize for not having the chance to update this blog for over two weeks except for the occasional posts here and there. Life happened and Instagram came. Dub me the Latecomer as I have just discovered the beauty of this social network.

Because of that, I installed a good plug-in so you can still be updated with my life. Yes, I'm talking to you, my three loyal readers.

I have also just devised a way to organize my schedule without compromising time with family, work deadlines, personal enrichment and blog-writing (in that particular order). Allow me to explain: My day starts at 5:00 am after Laika's crying for milk, then I start pumping milk, praying, sleeping a little until husband wakes me up for breakfast. The whole morning is dedicated to Laika until she takes her morning nap and in the afternoon, I enjoy lunch with the husband (who conveniently works in the hospital right in front of our apartment), take Laika for a bath, and play with her until her afternoon nap. That's when I get some work done. Evening is for dinner, exercise time (because I really, badly need to get back to my pre-preggy weight), and then that's when another round of work is done until I sleep by 12 midnight, if I'm lucky, or 2 am, if insomnia strikes.

Phew! That's a whole lot of explaining for an I'm-sorry-I-don't-post-as-frequently-now post. That is to say I hope to be a better blogger next time. I'll be lucky to get a post done a week now but I will try.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, where was I? Right, the Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge. Remember my favorite bloggers, John and Sherry Petersik? Well, they are the bloggers behind Young House Love and they are the awesomest dork bloggers ever!

John and Sherry posted a Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge in their blog and I heard myself thinking, "challenge accepted!" So I dragged my sweet husband to the nearest Thrift Shop. As in five-blocks-away-from-the-house near.

The challenge says to bring $20 and because in the Philippines, that means P814.30, I prepared myself to bring in stuff for the house.

See, I have never, for the life of me, thrifted for things for the house. Clothes, sure I have. Other than that, nada. Zero. Zilch.

On the drive there (yes, five blocks and we still brought the car. What? I don't know if we were going to buy something massive), we heard, for the first time might I say,  the Thrift Shop by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, on the car radio. True story.

When we got there, as it was after office hours, we were clearly losing natural lighting. That is to say, "sorry for the crappy photos, I did not think to set my camera to the correct settings".

As soon as we got there, the first thing that caught my attention was this beautiful cabinet made of rattan. I would marry it if I could. Sorry, Saud. Good thing for him, it costs P4000 (about $100) and that's about 5 times more expensive than what I brought. So, goodbye, gorgeous cabinet. I wonder what could have been?

I continued browsing, not even knowing what my P815 can buy. Saw a lot of things with potential. And then it happened. My husband's jaw-dropped.

Yes, that's genuine and pure awe. I stole this shot and I heard him say, "if I see a Gameboy and a Pokemon here, I am going home with them." Gotta love that despite having our own, he is still a child at heart.

Unfortunately, he found none.

I was also in dreamland as I found a place with lots and lots of furniture. I always had to remind myself that we had barely a 50-square-meter apartment.

To make the Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge turn into a genuine Young House Love Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge, I photographed two things in the list. Two, because I cannot bear to do silly things in front of the camera (bonus points for that?)

But! Unlike my husband, I did not go home empty-handed.

 

Two wonderfully-patterned vases for P300 each and a nice oriental tray for P200 (I haggled from P250). Oh yes! Challenge done!

And here they are in our dining table.

photo from my Instagram. Yes, I'm an addict. Get me to the rehab.Fast!

And to prettify our new kitchen stuff, we bought flowers from the nearby Dangwa. I love our neighborhood!

How was my Thrift Shopping? I had fun! Too much fun that I swore I will come back. This time, I want to sell stuff. Goodbye, clutter-in-our-house!
 

How to Live Frugally

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Before my husband and I got married, I never had an experience on living independently. Sure, I lived in a boarding house when I was in college, but my parents gave me more than enough allowance then. I was also with my older sister that time so I had no responsibility except myself.

Imagine my shock when I had to, suddenly, live on a budget. Luckily, my husband is not new to this as he is self-sufficient (unlike me, who, up to the last minute, was living in my parents' house). Together, we had to do steps to adjust to our life together.

1. We are a one-car household. Sure, we own a gas guzzler, but we live in front of my husband's workplace and I commute to work, so the car is not used that often.

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2. We "eat in". As tempted as we are to always dine out (our rented apartment is located in the middle of a restaurant strip), we cook our own meals.

3. Until recently, we never had a house help. A two-man household is fairly easy to maintain. Our electric bill never reached P1000 before as we seldom use the air conditioner. But when Laika arrived, that's a whole different story. (Our electric bill shot up!)

4. We took having a household help to our advantage. Whereas before, we buy our groceries in the supermarket, now, we ask her to buy from the local palengke. Much, much cheaper. Plus, given that we are not with her while she is shopping, she sticks to the list. You don't know how much we've saved without ME doing the groceries. The last minute "maybe I need this" items really add up.

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5. We also have our laundry done in the house. 

6. As I have mentioned before, I cut my husband's hair. And my hair, being always up in ponytail, is pretty low maintenance.

7. We anticipated the added costs of having a baby, so we took measures to still spend as little as possible. My number one motivation in breastfeeding is the free milk. We refuse to buy formula because it's not cheap. YES! All the health benefits are just added advantage.

We also use cloth diapers and avoid disposable diapers as much as possible. Cloth diapers (CD's) may cost much but in the long run, you save much. Not to mention, we got CD's as gifts before (Thanks, Myke). Sure, on the first few weeks, we use disposies. But now, we are 100% cloth diapering. It doesn't hurt that they all look so cute, too.Our brands of choice are bumGenius, next9, Baby Leaf, and Alva.

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8. We live within our means. Good thing, my husband and I don't believe in having a credit card. If we can't afford something, we don't buy it. As simple as that. Although we may have to eventually give in and have a credit card for when we are traveling. But for now, we're good without it.

Our Baby's Storage Space

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from http://www.bubsngrubs.com.au/baby-change-tables.html

When we learned that there will be an addition in the family *cough*baby*cough*, we decided that aside from the emotional factor, the financial factor, and the physical factor (stretch marks, anyone?), we have to prepare ourselves for a new person with a new closet requirement.

Originally, we planned to just buy a dresser with four or more drawers. A baby does not need that much space, right? So off we went to Landmark Department Store in Trinoma to look for one that will fit our budget and fit our needs. But after much searching (and going to other department stores and home improvement shops), we learned that we could not find something exactly to our liking.

And then, one fine weekend, as we were having breakfast in my mother’s house, we learned that she would be renovating her school. An idea came to me: What if we had our dresser custom-made by the same people who will do my mother’s renovation project? So we discussed it with Mama. I drew up plans and showed it to her. We made our rough estimate. And it dawned on the husband and I. That would bring us up to a total of P8000. A damage we cannot afford. A damage we would much rather spend on something else.

So off to the drawing board we went again. We tried sleeping it off thinking we will think of a better solution. We even went back to shopping and ebay-ing to look for something that will match our taste. But everything just isn’t right. We know we will not live in this apartment we are renting forever. So a temporary solution will just be plain un-wise.

One weekend, while my husband was on hospital duty, I looked at a white cabinet in our bedroom. This cabinet was provided to us by the house owner. It currently holds things that I have not been looking at since we moved here. Our “storage room” if you will.

But let’s face it—a storage it is not. It is more like the “I don’t know what I will do with it but I don’t want to throw it so I will just hide it” cabinet. It has the bags I have never used, freebies from when my husband attends medical conventions, and other stuff that are better not seen.

I don’t know what came in me. Me and my pregnant self decided to throw things out that are too damaged that we can’t use it and packed away things I can give to other people who can find use to it. In the end? I found myself with three garbage bags full of things. The result? New closet space for baby! YEHEY!

Problem solved.