So, during the past year, I’ve been doing a lot of considering about my life and how I’m living it and what I would like to be different and how to change it. And I think I’ve found a name for all of this: voluntary simplicity.

Not that I coined that term myself. It’s a movement that’s taken hold in America (and, presumably, other countries) in recent years, and focuses on choosing to live a simpler lifestyle–largely by doing things yourself.

I found this during my most recent possessions purge–you know, that occasional time in life when you just feel the need to go through all the things you own and get rid of the junk that you either don’t need, don’t use anymore, or didn’t even want in the first place. It’s been quite freeing this time–and even marginally profitable, since I sold some things on Amazon–and it got me thinking more deeply about what exactly it is that I want in life.

I hopped on the internet (as I so frequently do in response to tough questions, including those of the soul-searching variety), started looking around at some information about minimalism, and then suddenly came across the term “voluntary simplicity.” Aha! I thought. That sounds like just what I’m looking for. And, indeed, so far it seems to be.

Since that day, I have come across two websites that I really enjoy, both dealing with different aspects of this lifestyle. I have found them both fascinating and enlightening, and would therefore like to share them with you:

  • Choosing Voluntary Simplicity Shirley lives and works in New England, and has been living a voluntarily simple life for several years now. I enjoy her quotes of poetry, photos of flowers, and discussion of their simple, rural lifestyle–and I especially love her from-scratch recipes! They’re always tasty, simple, and usually quite fast.
  • The Simple Dollar Trent lives in the Midwest (Iowa?) and writes about how to get your finances in order, both through frugal living and through personal financial planning.

I also just got thinking, since I keep the above sites bookmarked under “personal development,” that I ought to share my two other favorite personal development sites with you all:

  • Og Mandino If you’re not familiar with Og already, you really should be. He writings can work wonders i n your life. And someday I’ll have to explain the theory behind why it works so well! But not now … that’s a post for another day.
  • Steve Pavlina (Personal Development for Smart People) Steve has an incredible personal story, and I find his articles entertaining, profound, and eminently practical. I’ve used lots of his ideas to help me break old habits, create new habits, and generally keep myself motivated to continue working on it all.

So, after that short digression, I shall now move on to the real point of this particular post: my new “piggy” bank.

I have been thinking long and hard about my personal finance situation lately. And yesterday, while driving to church and then waiting for Sacrament Meeting to start, I got looking through the new Ensign, which included a few articles on the same subject. The more I have looked through the official counsel from Church leaders, the more I have been struck with the idea that I need to seriously start a savings fund.

I have found that goal rather daunting in the past, from the way that I’ve heard financial gurus talk about it. They say, for example, to save 10% of all your income, and to build a reserve of several months’-worth of expenses. Although I did save 10% of my income for a little while last year, I found myself spending it too easily–and, as a result, I had little to nothing saved at any given point. And after that, it seemed so overwhelming to try and save up an emergency fund of several thousand dollars (especially given my current salary).

But I have found hope in the LDS Church’s pamphlet “All is Safely Gathered In,” in which they counsel members to build their emergency preparation storage (both of food and of money) just a little at a time. Church leaders have recommended that we save just a little each week, even if it’s only a few coins.

As I have pondered that counsel, I’ve found that it’s a do-able goal. I often have spare change sitting around, or a few extra dollars left at the end of a week, and there’s nothing (reasonable) to prevent me from depositing that money in my savings account, to help build up a reasonable reserve to use in cases of emergency.

So tonight, I held my own, personal Family Home Evening, where I studied a little more about the necessity of building an emergency fund, along with advice from various financial counselors about how to build that reserve and what to use it for. (I am finding, personally, that it’s vital for me to define, specifically, which events qualify as an emergency and which don’t. Otherwise, I’m all too apt to decide that  it’s really essential for me to buy that new shirt that I love so much–even though I can easily do without it, and that’s not really what the Emergency Fund is for.) I particularly enjoyed this article: Saving for Greatness.

After that, I picked out an old, empty pint jar from my obliging sister’s storage room, and decorated it with some pretty paper, designating it as my collection jar for the E-fund. I decided to forego the slit in the lid, since I figured it was just as easy to unscrew the lide once or twice a week, and it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to safely punch that hole in.

I set the jar up on a shelf in my room, in a spot where I can see it easily and think of it often. And I have already donated a little over a dollar to the E-fund, which I plan to deposit in the bank at the end of the month.