Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Rose Lounsbury.
How many towels do you need? This was the surprisingly life-changing question I faced on a Saturday afternoon in early 2012, as I scrutinized my linen cupboard.
I had just started on a minimalist journey, inspired by my 1,500 square foot house that could no longer comfortably contain the possessions of me, my husband, and our three 2-year-olds (yes, you read that right… triplets).
A few weeks earlier, we’d returned from visiting out-of-state relatives for Christmas with a van absolutely packed full of presents. As I walked into my house and assessed our already stuffed surroundings, a slow, frightening realization came upon me:
We didn’t have room for the things we already owned. Where was I going to put this new stuff?
I felt defeated and overwhelmed. I knew the gifts had been given in love. I knew they were supposed to make me and my children happy. But more than anything, they added stress to my already stressful full-time-working-mom-of-triplets life.
Luckily, though, a change was coming.
About a week after Christmas I had lunch with a good friend, and I explained my problem. I thought the solution was to either buy a bigger house or allow no one to buy my kids Christmas presents again, ever.
But my friend looked at me between bites of soup and casually suggested another idea, “Or… you could just become a minimalist.”
I immediately thought of monks living in a cave or college students traversing Europe with all their possessions on their backs or black-clad hipsters lounging on white couches in apartments that doubled as art galleries. None of that sounded like my real life in the Ohio suburbs with three kids, two cars, and a mortgage.
But my friend reassured me that minimalism was just a philosophy, a less-is-more approach to living, and that any modern American could adopt it. Skeptical but intrigued, I went home and started reading. I was hooked.
Which brought me, a few weeks later, to January of 2012, when I went to put away some towels in my linen cupboard and asked myself the aforementioned life-changing question:
How many towels do you need?
Now I want you to realize, this wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself questions about my stuff. Unbeknownst to me, I’d been asking myself questions about my stuff my entire life (and you probably have, too).
But those questions sounded different. They sounded more like this…
“Rose, how much stuff could you AFFORD to buy?” I was a dedicated closeout, clearance, and coupon shopper, always scouring the racks for the best “deal” I could find.
Another favorite: “Rose, how much stuff could you FIT in here?” I used every spare inch in my snug home to cram in as much as possible, often resorting to space saver bags and bins stacked precariously high in my attic.
And, finally, the Big Daddy of them all, the question I continually asked every night as I spent hours putting away toys, shoes, sippy cups, and errant paper: “Rose, how could you better ORGANIZE this stuff?”
I thought organizing was the answer, the Holy Grail, the thing that—if I could just master it and buy the right bins with the right labels—would solve my problem. I’d finally have the home in the magazines. I’d finally stop feeling like every day was a continual battle between me and the chaos.
But that Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t asking myself any of those questions. That day, fresh in my nascent minimalist awakening, I was asking myself a very different question:
Rose, how many towels do you NEED?
That’s the kind of question that just might change your life.
The answer was surprisingly clear: two per person.
Which immediately felt wrong. Because if you passed third grade math you know that’s only 10 towels for a family of five, which certainly wasn’t the number of towels I’d registered for on my Bed, Bath, and Beyond wedding gift registry. It wasn’t the number of towels in my friend’s homes. And it certainly wasn’t the towel message I received from Better Homes and Gardens magazine. They were telling me I needed pink towels for spring and yellow towels for summer and towels with festive reindeer prancing across them for Christmas! Ten towels just didn’t feel right.
So, I did something I rarely do. I entered the sanctum of my husband’s man cave on a Saturday afternoon (aka prime sports-watching time) to ask him a very serious question, “Honey, is it okay if we have just 10 towels?”
Josh paused. He looked at me for a long time. I’m certain that during this time he was deeply pondering the critical issue of the towel supply. He eventually responded with a somewhat confused, “Yeah, I guess. I mean, that sounds about right.”
That settled it. Ten towels.
Now remember… that was EIGHT YEARS ago. In that time, I have not increased our number of towels and everyone in our family has been dry when they needed to be dry.
This early venture into minimalism taught me two very clear things:
- I can live with a lot less than I think I can.
- I can definitely live with a lot less than society tells me I should.
In my closet right now, you would see five bath towels—because the other five are in use. You would also find 5 pool towels on the bottom shelf. So yes, technically we have three towels per person: 2 bath towels + 1 pool towel. The surprising thing about this is that my kids are on a swim team every summer and we’ve gotten by on this number of towels.
The most interesting thing about minimalism is how it changes my mindset.
Every June when I see the pool towels on sale at big box stores, I think, “Maybe I should just buy a couple more.” But then we get through the swim season just fine and I’m reminded again of lessons #1 and #2.
My towels are just one example of minimalist thinking. After I decluttered my towel cupboard, I went through the rest of my house, asking myself different variations of that original question:
Rose, how many coffee cups do you need?
Rose, how many pairs of shoes do you need?
Rose, how many boxes of holiday decorations do you really need?
And slowly, over a period of almost one year, my home physically transformed. My cluttered corners turned into open spaces. My formerly crammed cupboards had room to breathe. My now unstuffed drawers opened and closed easily.
So yes, my home looked neat and tidy, but that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t why I kept doing what I was doing. The reason I kept doing it was because of how I felt. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I felt free. I felt at peace. I started to find myself, at the ends of my long working + parenting days, relaxing on my couch instead of frantically picking up my stuff.
So today I want to encourage you: ask yourself a life-changing question.
Insert any word you like (towels, sweaters, hammers, wine glasses, email subscriptions, volunteer commitments, etc.) into the blank space:
How many _______________ do you need?
My wish is that this simple question starts you on a journey toward a more peaceful life, full of the possibilities of open spaces.
Cheers to less stuff and more you!
***
Rose Lounsbury is a minimalism and simplicity coach, speaker, and author of the Amazon bestselling Less: Minimalism for Real. Rose spends her days speaking, writing, coaching her clients and online students to stuff-free freedom. Rose’s advice has been featured in USA Today, and she’s been a guest on Good Day Columbus, NPR, Good Morning Cincinnati, and Living Dayton. You can find her online at RoseLounsbury.com.
Candy Swart says
I’m really trying hard to get into this minimalist thing. We are about to move from a 190m2 house to a 60m2 tiny place.
I can’t wait. I have got rid of so much stuff and know it’s not nearly enough yet.
I’m just going head to head with my husband as he wants to hang onto so much more big furniture than I do. I can see moving day being chaos as he wants to see everything squashed in before he will let it go.
Woo hoo bring it on !!!
Amanda says
This is a great concept, reminds me of Jen Hatmaker’s book “7”. As a household of one, who uses one towel for hair and another for body, plus a dog; I COULD make two towels work if I HAD to. However it would mean a lot more loads of laundry, no guests and the towels would inevitably get used for “dirty tasks”.
It really all depends on a person’s situation, its more the principal of reducing any excess possessions, storage or expenses .
Toni says
Thank you, Amanda. I agree, and who has time for constant laundry….
Tamara says
When I had our baby we started out with five changes of clothes. I refused to buy any outfits since I knew we would get plenty gifted. Now we have a lot and I am less happy and less grateful. It is strange but true. Maybe back in the day when people had very little they treasured their things more and thus were happier.
Debi says
I like the comment for being grateful for what you have….when you have too much the appreciation goes down. Also you are right up my alley!
susan hall says
I know what you mean my son and wife have twin girls just over 2years old and im amazed how many clothes they have
Maurie McGaughey says
I have always bought a whole new set of 6 bath 6 hand and 6 wash clothes anytime I had a color change or they were getting worn. My mom passed in 2011 and I was left to go thru everything can you say horder-she taught me don’t forget. Then brother passed 2017 again I had to go thru a 2nd horders stuff. I am still working on it all which is like a rats maze but there is tons of room so I just keep a box in the corner to put things in and when it is full off it goes to goodwill, amvets etc.
Denise says
My daughter called yesterday “stop what you’re doing, throw out all the papers prior to 2015 in your office!”
She’d spent the day purging her ailing father-in-law’s home, hoping to sell in the near future. She has many days of purging ahead of her. She’s begging me to clean out while I’m still able. I am working on it, she shouldn’t be left with such a daunting task!
Tina says
I was reading through more comments. Today is our 48th anniversary. I just gave a big bag of old clothes and blankets to Salvation Army. Last week we took a bag of old electronics to the e-recycling place. Today, we took a bunch of plastic bags out. More stuff comes because my daughter likes to shop. More stuff comes because my husband likes new things. I give old dishes and vases to Goodwill. I am the only minimalist I know. I bought a book for the first time this year yesterday. My kids gave me a gift card I had never used.
Ola says
Thanks for sharing. I’m constantly asking the shoe question :)
Queen Stuss says
Rose, your story and mine are remarkably similar. I had been drowning in stuff for many years because of my penchant for sales and bargains. My second child was born just before Christmas, and the amount of gifts pouring into my home from many well-meaning people broke me. I realised I had clothes that my first son NEVER wore because we had too many, and now my second son was being given even more clothes.
A few months earlier it had occurred to me that I had more recipes in the books in my cupboard that days of the year, so I parted with all the unused books. That Christmas it clicked for me that that thinking could be applied to every room and cupboard.
Lisa says
We live in an apartment building and have a WhatsApp group with our neighbours. We constantly borrow stuff from each other. Two neighbours have a spare mattress in case anyone has guests stay over, others have extra plates or cutlery… someone else has extra chairs. We have a ladder that gets borrowed frequently. This way we help each other – and nobody has to own spare of everything. Borrowing seems to be a forgotten art. And yes, we too have 2 towels for each family member ;-)
Valerie Rogers says
If the epiphany comes by way of towels then that’s fine. Life’s baggage gets overbearing, and it becomes that way one item at a time until no one wants to deal with it en masse. Once we reach a simplistic point it’s easier for mindfulness to oversee and keep clutter and those pesky extras away.
Carolyn Overcash says
In our home, we do not question “how many I need.” The question is, “does it fit?”
I have designated spaces for various things, towels, linens, closets, drawers, kitchen things, and so forth. When everything is clean, the items fit in their spaces comfortably. We have established an “in/out rule.” When something comes in, something goes out.
I gift disposable items, instead of things that accumulate. An example is this, our church gives cooked meals to families at funerals, hospital stays, and so on. I gift disposable plates, cups, paper towels, plastic wrap, toilet paper, disposable utensils, small trash bags.
A receiving family member always says, “thanks,” usually the person standing in front of the sink washing cups or glasses.
Bron says
The gift of disposable items is great, but please make sure they are recyclable, biodegradable or compostable, otherwise you are causing the earth to accumulate items it has to deal with….
Sherry says
The problem is deeper than just “disposable” items. It’s the throw it away mindset. My grandma didn’t have electric or running water, the outhouse was out back past the garden. She canned her own food….almost everything we ate and when clothing wore out she made it into quilts. They didn’t have trash pick up and burned trash and if it couldn’t be burned you used it to hold nails, bolts, pins, buttons and anything else that you could. Today you buy a pair of shoes to match your outfit, everything is packaged with cardboard and plastic, toys are not meant to last more than a week or two….everything is disposable.. .if it breaks it’s cheaper to get a new one……I’m not trying to be critical, I am as guilty as the next but really what did you throw away last week or even yesterday!
K says
Do not put your hopes and dreams on recycling being the solution. This was something they put on the consumer, when the manufacturers of products should be the ones concerned with the resources used to package items. Recycling will not save us! Ir is just one step above landfill and given that there is too much recycling, too much contamination because people are lazy and ignorant, and no countries taking it, what good does it do when it goes straight to landfill anyway?!
Zero-waste living will do much more to help! Enact zero or near-0 -waste living in your home.
Melissa says
One of the best articles I’ve read on this site! Thanks for the motivation!