Sunday 13 January 2013

freedom...what does it mean to you?

I watched a very inspiring TED talk on the Frugal Queen blog last week. It talked about a family who decided to sell all of their possessions and go travelling for a year with their new baby. His argument was that, if you can stop being driven by owning more and more possessions and being held back by the responsibility of owning and storing all of those possessions, you can be free to live the life you want to lead.



Then there was a second video which had a brilliant quote in it..."why do we spend our lives in jobs we hate, earning money to buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't like?"

Then I watched a programme about women having mid-life crises on Channel 4, which showed a woman who ran a successful software consultancy, gave the whole lot away and moved to a canal boat so she could spend more time with her family.

Both of these examples are fairly extreme, but how would you feel about giving away all of your stuff? Would you feel free or naked, happy or miserable?

My husband and I talked about what things we couldnt live without in our lives.
We both agreed that the only thing that we would never sell is our campervan. To us, she is our little piece of freedom. We jump in with the kids and as soon as we are on the motorway (usually heading South West to Devon, Dorset or Cornwall), all of our stress evaporates. Our camper feels like one of the family...we got married in her, our kids have grown up with her and if she's not fallen to pieces by then, I would happily be taken to my funeral in her.






Oh I would quite like to keep the blankets inside the van as they keep us warm at night.

But apart from that, I really think I could happily get rid of the lot.

6 comments:

  1. Well it's my goal when the Boy leaves home that we are going to move into a houseboat too. We've even priced it up! And if I had that camper van I'd never be able to give it up. x

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    1. Oh Jen do you really think you will do it? How exciting! I guess that the van is similar to being in a boat...I love it for 2 weeks but then the tinyness of everything gets a bit stressful for me.

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  2. Oh what a great campervan and what a lovely part of your family history, past, present and future it is ... we would love one or maybe a caravan ... better keep saving the pennies ... Bee xx

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    1. Bee, have you seen a blog called the happy caravan? There are lots of beautiful vintage caravans on there and I think theybarevsuch good value. Campervans seem to be getting quite expensive these days.

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  3. Hi well done on winning the giveaway. I have just realized I didn't put my email address on that post and I think my contact button on there isn't working properly - a couple of people have had problems getting it to send! Anyhow my email is carolinesouth1@gmail.com So sorry if you have already sent one and it didn't work! Caroline x

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  4. Hi, sorry to leave another message on here but I still haven't recieved an email and wasnt sure if its because of my email address. I have looked at my contact button and seems to be ok now but should deffinately get it on the above email address. Thanks Caroline x

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