42. Reduce Your Needs for Goods and Services

One of the myths of the eighties was that the more goods we had and the more help we hired, the simpler our lives would become. In the process of simplifying I have found just the opposite is true.

Rethinking your buying habits (#40) and changing the way you shop (#41) will reduce the “goods” that clutter up your life. Many of the other steps outlined in this book will reduce your need for “services.”

For example, once you start simplifying, your house will be so easy to take care of you won’t need the cleaning lady; your meals will be so basic you won’t need the cook; your errands will be so organized you won’t need the chauffeur; your wardrobe will be so minimal you won’t need a fashion consultant; your investments will be consolidated so you won’t need a bookkeeper; your purchases will be limited so you won’t need a shopping service; your entertainment will be reduced so you won’t need a babysitter; your phone system so direct you won’t need an answering service; your lawn will be eliminated so you won’t need the gardener; your home will be uncluttered so you won’t need a professional organizer; your relationships will be cleaned up so you won’t need a psychotherapist; and your health and fitness program will be so easy you won’t need a personal trainer.

Just the scheduling (not to mention the rescheduling), arranging for transportation, getting people to do things right, arranging to pay them, and finding someone to take their place when they quit (which they don’t do until just about the time you’ve gotten them trained) is complicated enough to make me want to avoid most of these “services” like the plague.

Again, we’re talking about personal choice here. We each have to decide for ourselves the point at which the goods and services we have in our lives cease to make our lives easier, and begin to become a burden. Our own goal was to arrange our lives so that we could easily take care of most of our personal needs and possessions on our own. We’ve created a whole new sense of freedom for ourselves by eliminating most of the goods and services we once thought we couldn’t live without.