I’ve been working hard to get rid of the stuff that’s cluttering my closets.  I’ve been trying hard to only bring home things that I truly need or absolutely love.

And I’ve been working on being grateful for having less.

There have been times in my life where I’ve been broke.  There have been times in my life when my bank account was okay, but because I wasn’t meeting my financial goals,  I felt broke.

I’m grateful for those times.  Those moments helped to define me and inspired me to get creative, work harder, and learn new things.  Those periods of having less were hard, but they taught me to appreciate all of the things I do have.   They have made me appreciate the moments when frugality was a choice and not a necessity.

My year of less stuff, more happiness has driven me to see just how prevalent consumerism is in our society.  You can’t go to a public event without someone  trying to hand you a goody bag full of brochures and plastic promotional junk.  You can’t turn on the TV without being blasted with messages encouraging you to “Buy now!”  It’s hard to escape the pressure of wanting it all and buying it all, even if you can’t afford any of it.

But I am making progress.  I’m thinking more about the environmental impact my shopping choices make.  I’m thinking about whether things I buy are useful and add value to my life.  And I’m buying less and saving more because of what I am learning.

Having less means I make do.  I get creative with what I have to make my dollars and resources stretch.  Having less means there is less to clean and maintain.  It means I don’t need a bigger house or more storage bins. Having less means I can focus more on sharing experiences with those I care about.

Too often, we focus on all the things that we don’t have and all the things we have to do and we forget that we have so many blessings in our lives.

Today I am grateful for having less.  I hope you can find it in your heart to appreciate a life with less, too.