Choosing Voluntary Simplicity

About finding balance in your life, connecting with who you are, and creating a lifestyle where you wake up each morning eagerly anticipating the day ahead.

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Posts in the “Glimpse into the Past” Category

  • How To Boil a Potato Perfectly, Circa 1880
  • Prices from the 1899 Sears, Roebuck Grocery Lists
  • What Did Things Cost in 1860?
  • “Eighteen Hundred and Starve to Death”
  • “Any Citizen of the United States Has the Recognized Right of Paying His Respects to the President”
  • A Little Book About Law and Life, Circa 1881
  • What Did Things Cost in 1872?
  • Dr. Rose’s French Arsenic Complexion Wafers — 1902 Sears Roebuck Catalog
  • Why Very Old Recipes Often Seem Incomplete
  • How To Do Laundry, Circa 1880
  • How To Take a Bath, Circa 1884

Categories

  • Antiques & Simple Treasures (14)
  • Bits and Pieces (3)
  • Book Reviews (3)
  • Bread Making (17)
  • Cooking & Baking from Scratch (109)
  • Doing It Ourselves (32)
  • Enjoying Nature (54)
  • Frugality (55)
  • Frugality & Nutrition series (70)
  • Get Organized Series (12)
  • Glimpse into the Past (11)
  • Green Living (36)
  • Growing, Storing & Using Herbs (11)
  • Hosta (38)
  • Household Hints & General Information (54)
  • Inspirational Life Quotes (65)
  • Living with a Soy Allergy (26)
  • Miscellaneous (26)
  • My Creative Pursuits (8)
  • My Family's Favorite Recipes (61)
  • My Soy-Free Recipes (69)
  • Old-Fashioned Perennials (19)
  • Personal (154)
  • Personal Development (29)
  • Personal Finance (5)
  • Plants in my Gardens (106)
  • Reader Questions (53)
  • Sempervivums (Hens & Chicks) (12)
  • Simple Living (222)
  • Voluntary Simplicity (348)
  • Wildflowers (22)

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Reading List

The Good Life: Helen & Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living

by Helen & Scott Nearing

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

by Carla Emery

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It

by John Seymour

The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre!

by Carleen Madigan

The Complete Tightwad Gazette

by Amy Dacyczyn

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City

by Kelly Coyne
and Erik Knutzen

Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens

by Kathy Harrison

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition

by Abigail R. Gehring

Storey's Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance

by John & Martha Storey

The Happy Minimalist

The Happy Minimalist: Financial Independence, Good Health, and a Better Planet for Us All

by Peter Lawrence

Read my review

Copyright Information

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Welcome to
Choosing Voluntary Simplicity!

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Most Recent Posts

  • When We Stop Stuffing the World with Things
  • How To Boil a Potato Perfectly (1880)
  • Our Search For a Firewood Source Continues...
  • Sometimes It Takes a Closer Look
  • A Quick & Easy Yogurt Ice Cream
  • There Was a Package in Our Mailbox Today
  • Are You Tired of the Noise?
  • What Do Bleeding Hearts Look Like When They First Come Up in the Spring?
  • What Do Hostas Look Like When They First Come Up in the Spring?

Voluntary Simplicity

  • Why We Chose Voluntary Simplicity — Sometimes There Is No Tomorrow
  • What is the Difference Between
    Simple Living & Voluntary Simplicity?
  • What Voluntary Simplicity Is NOT
  • Thoughts About Voluntary Simplicity
  • A Simple Country Life
  • Downshifting To A Simpler Life
  • No One Way To Do Simple Living Right
  • Learning To Slow Down
  • The Paralysis of Too Much Analysis
  • Our Journey to a Debt Free Life
  • Decluttering and Purging
  • How To Stop Procrastinating
  • Organizing, Decluttering & Purging
  • Leaving Your Comfort Zone
  • How You Choose To Spend Your Time
  • Discovering Your "Enough"
  • Less "Stuff" Doesn't Equal Happiness Either
  • How To Be Happy In An Unhappy World
  • A Simplicity Anyone Can Live With
  • Practicing the Golden Rule
  • Making the Most of Those Lifestyle Challenges
  • Keeping Photographs, Purging the Item
  • Seeing the Sunshine and a Happier You
  • Accomplishing What Needs To Be Done... Efficiently, Quickly, and With As Little Stress As Possible
  • Some Thoughts About Staying Motivated
  • Some Thoughts on Accepting Personal Responsibility
  • The Myth of Quality Time
  • What Living in the Moment Means To Me
  • That Sense of Balance
  • How Do You Get Things Done?

Living a Simple Lifestyle

  • The Wood-Burning Cook Stove in My Kitchen
  • Things I Have Learned About Cooking & Baking with a Wood Stove
  • Achieving a Simpler Life — Step 1: Track Your Spending
  • Yes You CAN Learn To Do It Yourself
  • The Biggest Obstacle to a Simpler, Truly Fulfilling Life
  • 7 Grocery Shopping Strategies That Work For Me
  • A Truckload of Logs
  • The Final Cut & Summer Memories
  • An Exercise in Perseverance
  • A Downside to Our Rural Life
  • Yesterday Was Not a Good Mail Day
  • Elderly Vehicles, Emergency Funds, & a Panic-Free Crisis
  • We Should Have Wondered Where All Those Rocks Came From!
  • Our Garden Paths
  • This Is Our Stone Path
  • How We Make Compost
  • How We Make Leaf Mold
  • There's a Bear in Our Bird Feeder
  • Digging Another Pond By Hand
  • Our Hand Dug Backyard Pond
  • Making Living Green a Habit
  • A Recipe for a Natural Cough Syrup

Sensible Frugality

  • Does Frugality Mean You Shouldn't Have Nice Things?
  • Being Sensible About Frugality
  • What True Frugality Is... and Is Not
  • Don't Confuse Playing at Frugality with Living Frugally
  • Getting Out Of Debt: Why You Buy
  • Energy Conservation & Convenience
  • Some Thoughts About Grocery Shopping & Sensible Frugality
  • How Much Does It Cost to Feed YOUR Family?
  • Homemade Laundry Detergent?
  • Somewhat More Intimidating Than the Usual Do-It-Yourself Project
  • Why I Don't Play the Coupon Game
  • Removing An Enormous Tree Stump
  • Money-Saving Tips for Buying Produce

My Simple Life

  • Life is Getting Back to Normal
  • It Was a Very Long Night
  • 14 Things Unique To Me
  • Fall, Grapevines & Weaving Baskets
  • A Little Too Close For Comfort
  • I'm So Glad Today Is Friday
  • The Mystery Of Duck Duck Goose
  • Our Uninvited Midnight Visitor
  • Too Many Crackers Too Late At Night
  • Lost On The Schoolbus
  • My Brush With Politics
  • When I Woke Up This Morning...
  • And That's a Warning We Take Very Seriously!
  • It's The Simple Things That Count
  • Appreciating the "Now" of My Life
  • My Husband's Solution To My Creative Chaos
  • Childhood Memories
  • Nothing Is Impossible
  • There's a Pig in Our Garden
  • My Knitted "Feather & Fan" Afghans

Want To Read More?

Check out the hundreds of other articles in the Choosing Voluntary Simplicity article archives.


Lord, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that you and I together can't handle.

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