Many parents take the time when their children grow up and move out of the home as an opportunity to simplify. If you are in this situation, you may have found that you don’t need as much space as you once did. While you probably miss your children, you’ve also probably appreciated some of the advantages. Most likely, you have a lot more freedom and spare time, and you might want a more minimalist lifestyle to make more room for what you want to do.
Simplify Your Finances
This is a good time to take a look at your finances and see if you are on track to retire when you want to. If not, what can you do to improve the situation? Can you make bigger contributions to your retirement fund now that you are no longer supporting your children? You may also want to look into selling your life insurance policy, which you may have purchased when your kids were young so that they would be financially protected if anything happened to you. You can look at a guide that will help you understand your policy and explain how you might be able to sell it for cash.
Declutter
Some people move to a smaller place when the kids grow up, but even if you aren’t ready to do this yet, you can certainly declutter. Even better, when you clean the house and get rid of things, it stays that way. Try to have a vision of what you want your life to look like now and what you could do with the kids’ rooms or the game room. Maybe you want a home office or a studio. Perhaps you’d like to turn it into a library. Whatever it is that you decide to do, think in terms of trying to make your life less instead of more complicated.
Revise Your Priorities
You should also spend some time thinking about your priorities now and how they may have shifted. If you are not single, this is something to do with your partner. Maybe you have brought up your children in a quiet suburban neighborhood but now you’d like to move into a more urban area. Perhaps one of you would like to make a career change. Maybe you want to travel or volunteer at your church. A simpler life means digging down into what truly makes you happy and trying to bring more of that into your day to day.
Automate and Outsource
Of course, you can’t spend all your time only doing what makes you happy. There are still responsibilities and chores that you can’t avoid, but you may want to look at streamlining them or having someone else do them as much as possible. Find out what you can automate and set it up, such as having all your bills automatically deducted. Apps can help you with everything from budgeting to eating more vegetables to getting enough sleep and more. A housecleaner, even one who only comes once a month or so, can cut back on some of your domestic tasks.
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