While we were debating the pros and cons of refrigerators, it dawned on me that a smaller (and thus cheaper) refrigerator would be just what we need. Besides the lower price, a smaller refrigerator will make us buy less food and with only two of us, a big fridge full of food means that a lot of the food would probably go to waste before we can eat it. Then it dawned on me that this theory will work for a lot of things in our lives...
- A smaller closet will encourage you to buy fewer clothes and to wear the clothes that you have.
- A smaller home will mean you can't buy a lot of stuff to fill it up because you don't have the space.
- A one car garage instead of a two car garage will cut the "garage creep"--whether it be tools, gadgets, or storage of junk--in half.
- A smaller car means less weight to carry and thus less gas used.
- A smaller bedroom means the kids won't need as much stuff to make it look "full" (and thus there will be less stuff to buy, clean up, maintain, scatter across the floor, etc).
- A smaller office will mean less furniture to make it look well furnished.
You get the picture. This is also one of the reasons we wanted to downsize with the next home we buy. Since we sold our much bigger house over a year ago, then watched as droves of CraigsListers and garage salers hauled away nearly everything we had in our house (at about 10 cents on the dollar compared to what we paid for the stuff) my thought was 'never again'. Never again am I going to have a huge house that needs to filled up with stuff. Never again am I going to buy buy buy stuff I don't need need need. Never again am I going to let "bigger is better" be my motto. I have now learned that smaller is better (and it's also cheaper) so our next refrigerator will be a basic model just big enough for our food but not too big. And I will be happy with that.
when my current fridge bites the dust I plan to replace it with a smaller one - at least not as deep. I find too much gets crammed to the back and forgotten plus it's harder to clean. I seldom use the icemaker since I don't like the tap water for drinking/ice so may just go simple and buy a separate freezer if I need the space.
ReplyDeleteSusanna
This concept, as you well know, is utilized in Japan. But the people there are smaller in size/stature, whereas Americans are BIG peeps. Big guys need bigger cars and trucks, bigger clothes, bigger furniture, bigger mattresses and even bigger coffins. Being only 58" in height, I like to think of myself as environmentally-friendly-sized. :)
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