Parameters for perimeters

Minimalism/simplicity — as a concept — can be very slippery, subject to much variability, even vague.

Online minimalists have different ways of framing the concept, depending on what they're trying to achieve.

The people who are travelling, and the one-bag nomad minimalists, must prioritise and strictly limit both the number and the type of their possessions. This in turn says something about the circumstances they are envisaging.

So, for instance, I have two very thick, warm sweaters and a heated fleece blanket to keep warm in winter. Nobody travelling the world with a 30-litre backpack could include any of those items. Just one of my winter sweaters would fill their whole backpack and prevent them taking anything else. So I deduce either their travels are only to warm places, or they'll be staying in heated environments — and they do typically stay in Air B&Bs or hotels — whereas my goal is to go through the winter without turning the central heating on more than once or twice, I won't be travelling anywhere, I'm living in the cheapest possible dwelling for my local area, and I want to get our household bills as low as possible.

It may be surprising that our 3-bed house with a garden is the cheapest possible dwelling (for two people) but it is true. Counter-intuitively, larger houses are cheaper than smaller ones (per square/cubic foot). If we moved to a more convenient dwelling, with everything on one floor and a smaller garden, we'd have the options of a bungalow or a flat (apartment) to choose from. Bungalows are much more expensive than the same accommodation on two floors (bigger footprint for the same thing, uses more land), and flats always come with overheads — even if they are bought with a share of the freehold there are shared responsibilities for the maintenance and repair of a large building which pushes up annual overheads significantly, and there are often hidden costs like cleaning of the common ways, separate billing for electricity metered for the common ways, grounds upkeep, etc.. In addition, though the area where we live is safe and friendly, it is neither elegant nor desirable, and that depresses the house values — you get a lot for your money. The houses were built during the 1930s mania for faux medieval/Elizabethan architecture, so our estate looks like a failed Disney attempt at an English country village. 

On a sunny day it has a weird ambience of a 1950s book with cosy and reassuring stories for children — like Milly Molly Mandy or the Ladybird Janet and John series.

The one-bag nomad minimalists also have no plans to be offering hospitality — not even a cup of tea for a tradesman come to fix a slipped tile on the roof, whereas my kind of minimalism does include family members coming over for afternoon tea a few times a year. That doesn't mean I need china tea-services and serving platters, linen napkins and a huge family table with six chairs. Paper plates and paper napkins work fine, and we have a tea-trolley that works for an everyday coffee table, or putting the laptop on to watch a TV programme together in the evening — or serving tea for a family visit. I have a few nice mugs; that's all the china I need for hospitality.

There are plenty of minimalists operating in a family context, some with very young children, most with spouses and kids who are not especially interested in minimalism. So their version of it is not the gleaming white surfaces and strategically placed orchids variety; they just tidy up and have less stuff.

This all leaves each individual minimalist with no kind of template; it's down to teach one how they express it as a lifestyle — it depends on their circumstances, relationship, goals and constraints.

My own objectives are something like this. I want to:

• Enhance freedom and flexibility in order to remain quickly responsive to any change in circumstances (eg having to sell our home or having to take in extra people, or losing income sources)
• Make my money stretch as far as it can, to cover my own costs and help other people.
• Minimise chores and the curation of objects. I don't massively enjoy housework. My house has to be easy and quick to clean.
• Enhance and extend independence as we go into old age — reduce what we need to clean and repair, reduce the number of trip hazards and things to carry and lift (or knock over).
• Maximise the sense of space in however small a dwelling I may unexpectedly have to move into.
• Optimise freedom of all kinds by reducing commitments and complication.
• Make choices easier and simpler and less confusing by not having many options in the first place.
• Walk lightly on the Earth, live quietly and unobtrusively, espouse what is humble and simple and calm.

I haven't yet got to where I want to be with it, I'm still working on it. 

One of the things underway is the reduction of plants in pots in our garden. It has a terrace that wraps round the house with steps down to the garden, because like all of Hastings it's built on a hill. And because joyriders totalled the car of the previous occupants parked at the roadside, we made the decision to turn the front garden into a forecourt to park the car. So there's quite a bit of brick and concrete around our house, and pots of plants soften that a bit, but... maintenance. So most of the plants will go in the earth, and we will just keep a couple for the front and a couple for the back to make it pretty — plus our house is fab for growing tomatoes; south-facing garden and the sun bouncing of the concrete terrace and white wall of the house. We can't eat tomatoes (high oxalate), but they make gifts that are joyously received, so we'll keep growing those. So just tomatoes and a couple of pots of bedding plants next year. The residual pots I'll scrub out and give away.

I am confident I have our kitchen and cleaning kit down to the best practical working minimum, and the tools and gardening things are for the most part under Tony's control in his sheds. But my clothes are still under review — I haven't got it quite right even though my life is very uncomplicated these days — I no longer need formal wear to conduct funerals, and I never get invited to parties (most of my friends are dead), so my only considerations are warmth, coolth, night/day-wear, modesty and comfort. The big challenge in the UK is we have four seasons and all of them are unpredictable. The combinations of warm hot cool dry wet and freezing cold happen constantly, sometimes all on the same day.

I find I need (apart from underwear and pyjamas plus a fleece hoodie for cold winter nights):

• T-shirts (all mine are long-sleeved, so no need for a winter/summer difference. I have several, as they're the things I most often wash: red, blue, black, spice yellow, brown, 2 green. 
• 2 thick winter sweaters, 1 green, 1 russet brown
• 1 brown medium weight sweater
• 1 black lightweight fleece hoodie for a warm layer on a chilly summer evening or a spring or early autumn day
• 2 sleeveless cardigans mostly for modesty if I'm going out just in a T-shirt, both very recently bought, one beige one black.
• 1 black over-shirt and one black t-shirt weight hoodie, with 2 sleeveless tees to go underneath (not both at once obviously, one to wear and one in the wash, one is black and the other green) for very warm days when I'm going out.
• 2 fleece gilets (1 black, 1 navy) for the very cold weather — as it often rains, sometimes one gets wet which is why I have two.
• 3 pairs of medium weight trousers (black, brown, navy) and one very warm pair.
• 1 pair of sneakers, 2 pairs of boots (1 pair is a fraction too small and needs fine socks, but I keep it because my feet are fussy), one pair of sandals.
• A few bits like winter hats, gloves, scarves — two of each of those categories.

All these things are the same kind of casual style and go together OK. The things under review are the 2 sleeveless cardigans, the lightweight fleece hoodie, the T-shirt weight hoodie, and the over-shirt — because I think I could probably whittle down those 5 things to 3 or possibly even 2. They are recent acquisitions because our summer was so much hotter than normal and I got in a muddle over what I needed — basically, far lighter clothing than I'm used to wearing, but I still want the modest coverage. And I like the variety of colour for my trousers (and t-shirts too), I'm no good at the monochrome thing of many minimalist wardrobes. I love colour.

The other bits — stationery, therapeutic items, a few tools and sewing things, a memory box, my altar, a few bits of jewellery — I regularly look at again, applying Josh Becker's brilliant maxim, "Can I cope with one less thing?" Works every time.

Oh — and one really bulky thing I have is a second set of bedding. I have a normal set of bedding (pillowcases, sheet, duvet cover) for the summer and a brushed cotton set for the winter. In truth I could manage with just one, couldn't I? I can line dry laundry in the summer and put it in the tumble dryer in the winter, so I can strip the bed, do the laundry and put it back on the bed again within a day. I might consider that.

How about you? What do you do? What system do you follow? What are the deciding factors in your life? What do you prioritise?