When we first discovered minimalism as a lifestyle in early 2012, we were amazed by people who counted all their possessions and limited themselves to double digits. We decided long ago that we probably wouldn’t ever get quite that radical with a family, but we are working on cataloging all our stuff for the following reasons:

• Cataloging will help us continue to pare down by recognizing what is really useful (or not).
• Cataloging will inspire us to get more creative with finding more versatile solutions instead of having a bunch of gadgets that only do one thing.
• Cataloging will simplify decisions about what we purchase since we’ll know at a glance what we already have.
• Cataloging will make it easier to continue to re-evaluate over time.
• We’re doing this with our travel lifestyle in mind – with the goal of becoming ever more mobile and flexible.

We’re sharing these lists with you because it can be difficult to imagine or understand how minimalism with a family can work. Obviously everyone’s experience is different, but we want to provide this practical, real-life resource as a frame of reference.