Things We Live Without

For the most part when you read about other people’s lives and homes on blogs, you end up seeing all the items and things that people have. From art to pillows, even plants, furniture and accessories. It’s all a lot of stuff. Today I wanted to write about what we don’t have in our house. As a sort of what-we-can-live-without list. Tell me if you also don’t have some of these too.

Cable

This is a biggie. Some people wonder how we live without it, but we actually cancelled it about a year ago. We do have Amazon Prime, and Netflix, so we watch a lot of TV series and movies on those. Plus we purchased our first smart TV so we can browse the web and use all the apps on it. The web browsing isn’t my favorite thing to do on there, it always seems a bit wonky, but we get by. Downton Abbey watching happens on the laptop 🙂 And I do a lot of reading instead. I was always more of a reader than a TV watcher.

Fabric Softener and Dryer Sheets

As far as laundry goes, I always viewed these things as unnecessary extras. I saw a how to make re-useable dryer packets, which I may try some day. Maybe with lavender like my eye pillows? But overall we tend not to use a lot of chemicals in our daily lives. I even made our own laundry soap, which I’ll write about soon. That brings us to the next point.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner, Glass Cleaner and Lots of other Cleaners

For cleaning the house, we use Shaklee® {affiliate link} concentrate to mix our own cleaners. Or we use vinegar, baking soda, salt and lemons. I have this fabulous book {affiliate link} about combining those ingredients to clean anything and everything. I love that the ingredients are all natural and don’t cost more than a few dollars. Have you ever tried cleaning with those items?

Bottled Water

Sometimes I see people lugging home from the grocery store those packs of 25 bottles of water and I cringe. Water bottles are one of the most common items in landfills so about seven years ago I got this Damask Aluminum Water Bottle {affiliate link} and so did Dan. OK not the damask one 🙂 We use them everyday. When guests come over we serve water in regular old fashioned glasses. The less plastic in my house the better.

A Home Phone

Do people even have these anymore? I know maybe some of you do for kids schools and such. We just use our cell phones of course. When we did move in almost four years ago we looked at getting one of those cable-home phone-internet combo deals and I’m glad we didn’t. Simplicity is better and we would have probably never use it anyway.

Magazine Subscriptions

Currently I have one subscription that is running out and I don’t plan to renew it. In fact, I’ve been working on getting rid of all the magazine piles around the house for a long time. In general I go paperless and this is a big area that can add up the clutter fast. All the magazines you’d want to read are on tablets these days so if I really want to get one, all I have to do is sign up electronically.

Tell me, are there things in your household that you do without?

I’d love to know what they are.

P.S. Don’t forget the Kirkland’s $50 gift card giveaway is still going on. Enter before Tuesday night!

And come see my latest post on Houzz. Minty Goodness for Every Room {picture below}.