The benefits of less space

Kannu
You must have heard about the quote, "work expands to fill the time available"? Its like that with living space. It was brought home to me over my previous trip to Asia and now I am flying over Pakistan again on another one month long trip. With 1 suitcase and 1 backpack. Literally, that's sufficient for me to live on. But of course I need bog rolls, I need a place to sleep, I need a bicycle. But pretty much everything is provided to me, so how much possessions do I need to live on? Not much.
I am a bit of a squirrel, specially with antiques and books. You have seen how i love purchasing those things. And keeping them with me. I feel a good feeling when I am on the couch reading a book and then raise my eyes and observe the rows of books, they are like my old friends. But that means that we have a big house. Well, its not such a big house, but given the availability of e-books, do I really need every book? In physical copy? I don't think so.
Second, more possessions you have, the more complicated your life becomes. More you need to worry about things. More you need to insure. And if you think about it, its more to do with showing off to people rather than actually needing things, son. Think about our car. Do we really need it? No we don't. We can get rid of it, but its been paid off, its in fine fettle, cost of running it is very low after 11 years of keeping it, its a workhorse. I don't need to show off to people that I am a rich man by having a beamer or merc. Its there, faithful old chap. But if I will travel around like this, we don't need the car. So keep that in mind. I make that mistake so many times, son, buying things we don't need. Think of the bloody watches I buy. Or the cufflinks. With almost 25 watches, I found that I tend to come back to 4-5 of them regularly. So I figured I was being an idiot and stopped buying them. Same with books. Stopped buying them. At least till I have done reading all the 3-400 books that I haven't yet read :), learn from my mistakes :) So do tell me off if I am buying stuff that I don't need, like what Diya does to me.
At end of the day, I calculated that if we had moved to a bigger house all those years back, we would have ended up spending about £5k more per year  minimum and more like £10k per year. So there you go, a saving of £25-50k, all of which will help you if/when you want your own house or want to start your own business.
Till then, see me live out of a suitcase :)
By the way, you look really handsome without the braces. You are looking like a man and a handsome man at that. I feel so happy and proud of you that I keep giving you hugs and kisses and running my hand over your head. Don't mind it, its just my love and blessings for you, son.
Love
Baba
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Early Retirement Extreme

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The benefits of less space
Posted: 15 May 2014 03:01 AM PDT
One of the, perhaps not so surprising, benefits of moving into a smaller place — two persons and a small dog in a 34′ RV — is that the question is no longer whether we can afford to buy something. Thanks to the difference between living in a house and living here, we have $1000+ more each month.

However, now the question is, do we have space for this. This question guides most buying decisions out of necessity. If storage reaches critical mass, it simply becomes too much of a hassle to deal with “things” as they start falling out of the cupboard or the become either hard to find or hard to store. Often this means that something simply does not get bought. In particular, buying something unless it needed or absolutely replaces something else becomes paramount. In turn, this also saves a lot of money. To wit, do I need an extra thingamajing? No, because I already have one, and there’s just not any room for it.