**Post written by Kevin Olega connect with him on twitter   facebook  g+**

In 2009 I was working for a recruitment company. On the side I was doing freelance projects and sales related work. When you work in sales you talk about goal setting for commissions and I was targeting earning six figure income or more.

I was looking at my lifestyle and I got to know some people who had slightly higher than minimum wage income but are doing pretty well. They can buy nice things (although not everything) but still remarkable things. They can also travel while making ends meet and magically, they had some savings and a few investments which isn’t bad at all for someone with that level of income.

My income isn’t so bad either. I’m not making six figures a month but I can say that my pay’s pretty good but how come people who make less than me, enjoy things I only hoped for?

If my income was good enough, then why am I not getting anywhere or at the very least, enjoying it?

My previous mindset was that you needed to have six figure income a month to enjoy this lifestyle. The truth is that you don’t. It’s a big eye opener that the life I want costs a lot less than I think.

Enter the minimalist lifestyle.

A minimalist lifestyle is about paring down (whatever) to just the essentials so you have spare resources (time, attention, money) to apply on what matters to you.

My first considerations was an analogy about food. Say you have two options.

Option one. You can have a fastfood value meal for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner everyday. Option two. You cook your own food Monday to Saturday but on Sundays you eat in a high class fancy restaurant or budget your dates.

I picked option two.

It’s about rerouting resources in your lifestyle from something that you spend on that’s recently unimportant to something that is important.

I applied principles of minimalism to every aspect of my life I could apply it to. I did it for finances, time, stuff/items, etc.

When I started questioning what I needed, I found that I waste too much resources on trivial things.

I realized that in a lot of cases...

I bought clothes, I no longer wore. I ate out too much. I went out drinking with friends a lot. I bought several bags I no longer used. Souvenirs and magazines and collections and trinkets.

I make good income but...

I never got to travel to where I wanted to go I never got to buy the gadgets I wanted I never had the budget nor the time for my personal goals

I asked myself the question “why” a lot.

Today I have...

Conquered impulsive buying. Lived with less than 100 things. More free time. Cash to spare for things that matter.

How did I get to do this?

I let go of as much things I can let go of and I focused my resources on what mattered.

Less (unimportant) means more (of the important).

Why would you want to live a minimalist lifestyle?


Thank you for reading.

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