14 Reasons You May Want to Try Minimalism

Jan 15, 2023 | Blog, Minimalism for Moms

Different Types of Minimalists

1) Ambience Minimalists

These minimalists stereotypically like the white walls, curated art, and keep very few possessions. This is what many people associate with minimalism.

These minimalists are really concerned with how their house feels and looks.

This type of minimalist is more concerned with having a minimalist look and feel to their house than they are with having any sort of personalized decor.

Now, I personally don’t relate to this type of minimalist because I love decorating my house with family pictures. And having a house that looks and feels like a minimalist house isn’t as important to me as having a customized space that I enjoy living in.

But just because I don’t personally relate to this one, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a great reason for you to explore minimalism. If you love clean lines and clean looking spaces, this may be a great reason for you to check out minimalism and see if it might fit with your lifestyle.

2) Cozy Minimalists

The cozy minimalist is much more concerned with having a space that is customized to them and feels cozy when they are in it.

Often when you think of the ambiance minimalist, it looks like a sterile environment. Often they don’t have as much furniture, or if they do, it’s very minimalist. Typically no throw pillows and things like that.

Whereas, the cozy minimalist will have more pillows, blankets, wall decor and things that just make the house feel homey.

You would enjoy this type of minimalism if you want your house to feel clean, but you also want it to be comfortable and feel like it’s customized to you and your lifestyle.

This is definitely a type of minimalism I subscribe to. I love having a home that is easy to clean, but also feels warm and inviting.

3) Extreme Minimalists

Now, this is the type of minimalism that you would have seen if you watched the documentary on Netflix called Minimalism. These people have very little furniture, they pack for months in a tiny little suitcase, and they just have a miniscule amount of possessions.

People who like this type of minimalism will often will count their possessions and know exactly how many things they have in their house at all times.

This is not a type of minimalism that I am drawn to. I like to have enough things in my house for it to be comfortable for me to live in.

However, some people find this type of minimalism freeing because they can easily pack and travel at a moment’s notice.

So if you just have too many things in your house and you’re ready to just get rid of everything, this type of minimalism may appeal to you.

4) Frugal Minimalists

Frugal minimalists are typically drawn to minimalism because minimalists tend to buy less things. And when you buy less things, you happen to have more money (funny how that works 😅).

This type of minimalism might be appealing to you if you are already a frugal person by nature. But it might also be something that could help you if you have a budgeting problem and you need to reign in your finances.

Being a frugal minimalist helps you to not spend extra money unless you actually need to.

This is one reason I was drawn to minimalism in the first place because I am a very frugal person and I don’t like spending money on things that I don’t need.

5) Meal Planning Minimalists

Now often when people become meal planning minimalists, they create meal plans where they eat pretty much the same thing every single day. Or they may have a one-week or a two-week rotation of meals that they repeat over and over again.

Now, I do implement this type of minimalism in my house… but I put my own spin on it!

If you’ve read any of my meal planning posts, you know that I am a huge fan of having theme nights for every night of the week, and that simplifies my meal plan, without making things boring.

If you want to check out the Crazy Way I Meal Plan, you can read this post. Or if you want some help creating your own meal plan, check out Set It and Forget It Meal Planning.

But this is a great way to simplify your meal plan while still having variety!

6) Budgeting Minimalists

These types of minimalists are different than the frugal minimalists in that they try to actually minimise the overall budgeting process. This means that they will often have maybe one giant account that they pull everything out of, and they just have very broad categories within their budget.

Maybe at most they have four accounts that they work with, but it’s very simple, very streamlined. A lot of things will come out of the same chunk of money because they don’t want things to get too complicated with their finances.

Now I don’t personally subscribe to this type of minimalism. And I actually recommend that people have several accounts for their budget because that actually simplifies things in your mind. Check out this post here if you want to know which accounts I think everyone should have.

If you feel like you are going in way too many directions with your budget and you need to simplify it, this might be a type of minimalism that would work for you.

7) Stuff Minimalists

Just in case you’re wondering, yes, I am making some of these terms up as I go along 😅. But stuff minimalists are people who just don’t want to have so much stuff in their house.

They don’t really care if their home has the perfect minimalist ambience. They don’t necessarily care if they have a cozy minimalist house.

They just want to have less stuff in their life, and they want it NOT to look like Toys R Us threw up in their house.

So yes, this is a type of minimalism I definitely can relate to because I do not like having too much extra stuff laying around my house whether that stuff be toys, clothes, books, or anything else.

You may be interested in this type of minimalism if you feel like you just have so many things that you can’t keep your house clean.

I highly recommend stuff minimalism for anyone who has kids. I have found time and time again that my kids are happier, they share better, and their rooms stay cleaner more easily when we have less stuff.

I can always tell when it’s time to go through and start decluttering some things when they start fighting about toys.

And there’s kind of this reverse logic with it because you think when they have more, they should be happier. But it’s just not the case.

If you are interested in stuff minimalism, Check out this post on How to Start Decluttering When You are Overwhelmed by Clutter.

You can grab my Easy Decluttering Checklist and get started today! And if you want a little help, check out my decluttering program, Cluttered to Calm.

8) Cleaning Minimalists

The next type of minimalist is a cleaning minimalist. Cleaning minimalists just like to clean their house as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And if you’ve been around my blog or my YouTube channel before, you know that I can absolutely relate to this type of minimalist!

I used to clean my house all day on one day of the week and expected it to stay clean all throughout the week. And it did not work. So instead, I created a very simple weekly cleaning routine where I do a small amount of cleaning every day of the week except for my rest day.

So if you are interested in this type of minimalism, you can check out my simple weekly cleaning routine and create your own.

And if you would like to easily run your entire home, check out my Put Your Home on Autopilot course.

8) Low Waste Minimalists

Low waste minimalists embrace minimalism because they want to have a lower impact on the environment.

Now, this was not one of the original reasons that I came to minimalism. However, I would definitely say it is something I can relate to now!

Because I am a frugal minimalist, I started looking into buying things that were more reusable and figuring out which things I didn’t need to buy anymore. And it kind of led me down this low waste rabbit hole, which has been fun and eye opening!

And the further down the rabbit hole you go, the more willing you are to do some crazy things in the name of being low waste.

But if you care a lot about the environment or you just want to reduce your impact on the environment, this would be a great reason for you to explore minimalism.

9) Schedule Minimalists

Schedule minimalists want to have more white space on their calendars. They like to say no to a lot of things so that they can really enjoy the things that matter.

I definitely relate to this type of minimalism and I highly recommend it if you have children. Children can get very overwhelmed if they are constantly going and doing something (like so many of us are in western society).

If you schedule in time to be slow and schedule in simple days, children cope much better. And honestly, so do we, even if we don’t want to admit it!

So, if you are interested in this type of minimalism, check out my How to Set Up a Weekly Schedule so that you aren’t constantly going from one thing to the next.

10) Routine Minimalists

The next type of minimalists on my list are routine minimalists.

And these people really like to have a simple, predictable routine that will make their lives easier.

I can definitely relate to this type of minimalist as well because as you guys know, I love setting up easy routines that just make your life kind of run on Autopilot.

And if you guys are interested in setting up some routines that will help your home run itself, check out the YouTube series I did on How to Easily Manage Your Home, where I walk you through how to create every single routine that you need for your home to run smoothly.

11) Travel Minimalists

The next type of minimalists are travel minimalists.

This is a type of minimalism that I was interested in back when my husband and I were first married. We really slimmed down on just about everything else so that we could pay off our debt and travel before we had kids.

But this isn’t necessarily a huge driving reason for us now because we are on one income and we have kids, so we just don’t get to travel as much as we would like to.

But if you want to travel more, travel minimalism can definitely help you do this!

12) Quality Over Quantity Minimalists

Next are the quality over quantity minimalists.

These minimalists are very similar to the travel minimalists because they are able to get exactly what they want, when they want it, since they don’t have all the extra stuff and noise in their life.

For me this was not something that initially drew me to minimalism. I was very frugal and I liked buying clothes on the sale rack at Walmart because I figured “Why spend any more than that?”

But as I’ve gotten a little older, I have realized that certain things will last longer when you buy Quality over Quantity.

So this has been a mindset shift for me as I have continued to explore different aspects of minimalism. But it has definitely paid off to spend a little bit more on something that will last much longer than to buy something cheap over and over again.

So this type of minimalism might appeal to you if you are tired of buying cheap things and having them break all the time. You can invest a little bit more upfront and have things that last longer.

15) Rule-Breaking Minimalists

And the last type of minimalist that I have on my list is the rule breaking minimalist. There are a lot of unspoken rules out there about being a minimalist, but these types of minimalists just don’t care if they are breaking the rules or if they’re doing everything correctly.

But if you have seen my post on the 12 Minimalist Rules That I Break, you can probably guess that I can definitely relate to this type of minimalist.

Because, like I just mentioned above, I think it is more important to have a type of minimalism that works for you and works for your family than it is to just say, “I’m a minimalist and I follow all of these rules,” even if I don’t enjoy following them.

So that is it. That is all of the different types of minimalist that I could think of. Let me know in the comments below if you think I missed any, and I’d love to hear which types of minimalists you most relate to or which types you could definitely never see yourself becoming.

Ready to Simplify Your Life?

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