Welcome to this month’s Coffee & Questions segment here on The Purpose Show! The Coffee & Questions segment is a time when I sit down with 2-4 questions from you. You guys ask questions in many different places – email, Instagram Messages, Instagram Comments, Facebook, all of that. I have my team help me pull a few select questions and I answer them once a month. This is a time where I always physically have a cup of coffee with me because it feels super fun. It feels like I am sitting down with my friends, having coffee, and just…chatting. That’s what I want my show to feel like, especially this segment. If you asked a question, this is a time where I may answer it. So, sit down, cozy up, get a cup of coffee, and let’s chat!
In This Episode, Allie Discusses:
Simple ways to entertain guests as a minimalist.
How she reads so much in the busyness of life and what faith-based books she is enjoying right now.
What courses to start with if you are ready to dive into simplistic living.
Mentioned in this Episode:
WANT TO DECLUTTER YOUR HOME?
You buy stuff with your time, not just your money. Less clutter equals less stress and more time. It’s as simple as that! Your Uncluttered Home is my most popular, globally-praised decluttering course, designed for moms who want to live their lives more than they clean up after it. It’s truly the A-Z of minimalism – every room, every area of your house, totally uncluttered.
This super extensive, extremely detailed course is literally everything you need to become a minimalist mama who’s able to be a lot more present for what matters most. This truly is the ultimate when it comes to my philosophy and implementing it into your own life.
Hi beautiful friend! Welcome to this month’s Coffee & Questions segment here on The Purpose Show! The Coffee & Questions segment is a time when I sit down with 2-4 questions from you. You guys ask questions in many different places – email, Instagram Messages, Instagram Comments, Facebook, all of that. I have my team help me pull a few select questions and I answer them once a month. This is a time where I always physically have a cup of coffee with me because it feels super fun. It feels like I am sitting down with my friends, having coffee, and just…chatting. That’s what I want my show to feel like, especially this segment. If you asked a question, this is a time where I may answer it. So, sit down, cozy up, get a cup of coffee, and let’s chat!
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Okay, let’s dive in.
Question #1: How do you entertain as a minimalist, especially when your kids want to have friends over, but you don’t have an abundance of toys or space? I technically don’t need 15 coffee mugs, but what if I have friends over and we all want coffee? It seems like it can get expensive to always have disposable stuff on hand.
This is a great question and I’m really excited to answer it.
In Your Uncluttered Home, especially, I teach you how to make minimalism work for you, and I talk about this a lot in all of my free stuff too. You have to make minimalism work for you, who you are as a person, and how you use your home.
For me, hosting is a huge part of who I am and how I use my home. I love being hospitable.
Those of you who have been around for a while might remember when we bought a camper and renovated it. We traveled the country for about seven or eight months. The reason we didn’t go a full year, which was the original plan, was because I couldn’t take not hosting anymore. I missed having a home base. I missed having a “regular home,” having friends over, being the one who hosted for holidays, decorating. Opening up my home to people who needed a friend, who needed to come and vent. Or have a cup of coffee with somebody who needed prayer. Hosting book club and Bible Studies. I missed that so much. It was the biggest, number one reason that we didn’t complete our goal of a full year of full-time camper living and traveling with the kids. It’s huge for me, so I totally understand this question.
I absolutely have extra cups and more coffee mugs that I need for that very reason. I am always the hostess for family events. I host something in my house multiple times a month all the time. The only reason you will see me not hosting is if we are sick or something.
Thanksgiving is at my house. Christmas is at my house. Weekend barbecues. Memorial Day. Everything is at my house. The only holiday we don’t host at our house is 4th of July because we have a different tradition based on going to a park in our area with a bunch of friends at our church.
I love hosting. It’s a huge part of who I am. This is also one of the biggest reasons that Brian and I prioritize our home financially. Putting money into the outdoor space with lots of seating, making it really beautiful and welcoming. Using the front room and forcing an extra living room in there even though our house wasn’t really designed to have a front living room and a main living room. We made it work and made sure we had extra seating and sofas in two living spaces because we like to host. This is why we wanted to create a welcoming space and we’re happy to open up to others.
It’s a huge part of our family and our legacy. We love being hospitable. You’ll often find us saying, “Oh, why don’t you guys just come over this weekend and we can talk about it.” We love hosting.
We have two coffee machines for this reason. We have a lot of things that are circled around opening up our home. You have to make minimalism work for you. If you don’t, if you like to entertain, and purging certain items will make that difficult or more expensive for you, then why would you do that? Why would you let those things go?
If you do that, and in that case then what you’re doing is getting into this sort of legalistic minimalism, which is focused on following a set of unwritten rules and letting go of things because you technically don’t need them, and because you think that you should let them go. Not because it isn’t serving you and you know it’s right for you to let it go.
You’ve got to know yourself. You’ve got to know who you are, what you like to do, what lights you up, how you use your home.
Even if you aren’t super hospitable like I am and like the person who asked this question is, if you have kids, they’re going to have friends over every now and then most likely when they’re teenagers. We all want to be the place where the kids hang out, right? So we can keep an eye on them? If you don’t have any extra things it’s just not a reliable way to live.
This is why I have a whole lesson on this in Your Uncluttered Home where I talk about having extras. But if it really bothers you, if it’s really creating more work for you, if your family is pulling out the extra mugs, cups, and making more dishes for you, then store those things in another place separate from your regular dishes. Pull those things out when it’s time to host something.
I totally understand. And that’s what I would say to that question.
Really quick note on the part about “I don’t have an abundance of toys for kids to play with when they come over.” That doesn’t matter.
We have a limited amount of toys. We definitely have toys. I’ve shared before that we have a bin of Legos in the homeschool room. We have a toy bin that we purchased at Ikea. (I think they discontinued it. I always get questions about our toy bin. I think it’s gone because I can never find it to tag it for anyone.) All the toys fit in there. The kids will go into the kids’ room and pull out the toys and play swords.
I will tell you this. What normally happens when we have a playdate and we have friends over, is the kids will go upstairs and they’ll kind of explore. You know how it is when you go to somebody’s house and your kids want to explore? What’s their house like? What toys do they have? They will go up there and they’ll either pull out something, make up a game or story, and play “imaginary play” like my kids do all day, every day, or they’ll end up playing outside and not really using toys.
I have found that because I have four kids and they’re used to playing this simplified way of playing, that they pull their new friends into the way that they like to play. But, we do have toys and they do get played with when friends are over.
If you have like a “toyless existence,” I don’t really know what to tell you because we just don’t live that way. We just have less.
It’s not really a problem when friends come over.
Question #2: I noticed you seem to be reading a lot of faith-based books right now. (Yes, that’s true.) What are they? Do you mind answering?
When I read I like to bop around by topic. For a certain amount of time I might be really into reading about business and growing my knowledge in that area of my life. And then next it might be faith-based books. Maybe next would be parenting, marriage or personal growth.
I bop around by topic and I’ll get really into a certain area of my life and read a bunch of stuff on that topic. Then when I feel I’m burnt out focusing on that area of my life, I’ll move onto the next. That’s just me. It’s just a natural way that I take in books and content. It isn’t something intentional that I set out to do.
Here are some books that I’ve been reading right now.
I just finished Man, Myth, Messiah. It’s a book much like The Case for Christ. I don’t know if you guys have ever read that. It’s really famous. It’s a book that dives into the historical facts that prove Jesus existed, and prove who He was. I’ve been really interested in diving deeper into my faith. I was raised Christian. I went to a private Christian school. After I graduated high school I was at a point where I needed to decide if this was going to be my beliefs for myself, and not because I was raised that way and I went to a Christian school. I went on this little mini journey of finding God for myself.
I did and I continued to live the way that I was raised. But lately I’ve been interested in learning more. I want to know the facts. I’ve been really interested in diving into that area of my life. So I read Man, Myth, Messiah in paperback, and it was great.
I’m currently reading God’s Not Dead, which is actually the Prequel to Man, Myth, Messiah written by the same author. It’s really good. You may have heard of it. They turned it into one of those super cheesy Christian movies that I have not seen. I cannot stand those movies. I think they’re so cheesy. I’m glad they’re making them, but wow, the acting, I just can’t handle it, so I’m reading the book. It’s really good.
I’m listening to an Audible book called Poverty, Riches and Wealth: Moving from a Life of Lack into True Kingdom Abundance. It’s basically a biblically-based book about wealth, money, money management and all that, which is something that I am always seeking to be more wise about.
Question #3. Can you share how you read so much in the busyness of life? It seems like you have so much going on, yet I always see you taking on a new book. Please share how you do this.
Absolutely. First of all, you have to understand the season of life that I’m in. I did not read this much when I had tiny babies and when my husband was working at his job, which I always say it was a 9-5, but it was not. He would leave at 5:30/6:00 in the morning and he wouldn’t come back until after 10:00/10:30 pm sometimes. The earliest he would come back was at the kids’ bedtime. So, I did not read this much back then. I didn’t really do audio books back then either.
Understand the season that I’m in. Brian is home with me. We run our business together. We share the homeschooling load. We share the house load. Our kids are older. Emmett is 3-years-old (at the time of this recording, he’s 3 ½ , so I’m kind of out of that psycho season).
I’ve always been a reader. I’ve always been a bookworm, but it was a lot slower than it is now. The reason that I read so much is that I let myself. I gave myself permission to let go of this weird rule I had set for myself of not reading more than one book at once. I used to only read one book at once and I wouldn’t let myself start a new book until that book was finished. I realized it was weird.
I put that on myself. I think that’s actually really common. I’ve heard a lot of people say they do that. It was really holding me back from reading because sometimes I don’t want to pick up that particular book. I want to pick up a different book. I let myself have a couple of books I bounce around between and they sit on my coffee table. Whatever I’m currently reading is either in my purse, because I take my books with me wherever I go, or it’s sitting on my coffee table. I’ll pick up one of the two books that I’ve got going on. They’re usually around the same topic, the same type of book. I’ll read as I can.
I read for about 20 to 30 minutes every single morning as part of my morning ritual. I shared that in an earlier podcast episode, which I will link to in the show notes if you guys are interested in that. I definitely get a chunk of reading done then. If I only read then I would still read a lot and I would still plow through my books pretty quickly. That alone could be a reason why I read so much.
But like I said, I bring my books with me everywhere. If I have a second, if Emmett falls asleep in the car, I will sit for a little bit and read my book instead of getting in the house and unloading him, hurrying up and coming inside to get onto the next thing.
I think with minimalism comes a slower-paced life. Even though I’m very busy, my life is incredibly full. My days are stacked with my morning routine, then I get into the work day. I have house stuff to take care of. I homeschool my kids. When there’s baseball season, we have baseball. We have horse lessons. Then making dinner and getting the kids in bed. My days are stacked.
Even with all of that, there’s a slower-paced lifestyle that we have because we’ve simplified so much. That’s the way we are as a family.
I would say one of the biggest reasons that we do homeschool our kids is because we wanted to have a slower-paced life. When our kids were in school, we were always dropping off somebody or picking up somebody at different times and it was just crazy.
It was really a lot and it just didn’t allow for a very slow-paced life. We felt like we only got a couple hours with our kids each evening and those couple of hours were full of homework, cooking dinner, going to baseball practice, and going into the next thing.
We really didn’t like that.
With this slower-paced life, there’s room for things. Room for, “You know what, the kids are happy. I’m going to sit in the car for a few more minutes and read a few pages.” I’ll take my kids to the park and I’ll bring my book and sit on the bench and read a few pages. Then I’ll go play with them and we’ll go home. Maybe I need a second to myself in the midst of a crazy day when I’m feeling like I’m losing my patience. I’ll tell Brian, “Hey, I’m going to go upstairs for a second and just breathe.” I’ll bring my book, read a page or two, catch my patience again. Then come back downstairs and finish the day with my family.
I’m kind of sneaking it into my life throughout the day, but the biggest chunks of time are my half-hour of reading in the morning as part of my morning ritual, and sometimes I will read instead of watching Netflix.
I always have an audio book going at the same time as whatever paperback book I’m reading. I listen to my audio book every morning while I’m getting ready. So, with my morning routine, I have my quiet time and I do Pilates, read a book, read my Bible, and I have my prayer time and all that. But after I make sure the kids have had breakfast, make sure they’re good, I go upstairs and I get dressed for my day. I’m doing makeup and throwing my hair together. It’s usually only like 20 minutes. I will open up my Audible APP and I’ll hit play on whatever audio book I have.
Right now my audio book is Poverty, Riches, and Wealth. I just finished a book called Jesus Feminist on audio and I listened to that every morning while I got ready. 20/30 minutes of getting ready, sometimes it’s just 10/15 minutes depending on the day, but a chunk of time every single morning listening to an audiobook, I get through it pretty quickly.
That’s how I do it. I have a lot going on, but I still make time for reading. I think it’s really important to read. I teach my kids that too. Reading is power. Books are our power. Knowledge is power. It’s important to always be growing, always be learning about a different area of your life. It’s important to not stay stagnant, but always be learning, growing. I think reading is the way to do that.
Those are the little tricks that I do to take in so many books all the time.
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When you buy something, you buy it with your time. With minutes from your life. Not just with your money. Studies show us that less clutter equals less stress and more time. It is really as simple as that.
This was the founding reason that I created Your Uncluttered Home. It has become my most popular, globally-praised, decluttering course that I designed for moms who want to live their lives more than they want to clean up after it.
It is truly the A-Z of minimalism. Every room. Every area. Every nook and cranny of your house totally uncluttered. This super extensive, extremely detailed course is literally everything you need to become a minimalist momma who is able to be a lot more present for what matters most.
To learn more about the course, go to alliecasazza.com/allcourses.
This really is the short-cut version. The exact journey that I took as a mom, 5-6 years ago, that got me to this point of an uncluttered, minimalistic motherhood where I am spending the least amount of time on my house every day.
Motherhood is just way too sweet a time to be spent struggling so hard and living in survival mode day in and day out. Our stuff is really the cause of that.
If you want to start this lifestyle, if you want to simplify your life… I believe that it all starts at home.
Simplify your life. alliecasazza.com/allcourses.
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Question #4: I love your teaching and I want to go all in. Which course is best to start with and why?
This is a really great question. I think it’s one of the top five most asked questions. I see this all the time in my Facebook group. It’s really popular. I’m happy to finally give this an answer.
First of all, if you go to my website and you click the courses tab at the top, there is a video explaining the differences between each of my courses. I have a breakdown of a picture and the title of the courses, a little bit of a quick recap of what they are. And then if you scroll down, you’ll see a video of me and I am explaining the differences between each of my courses because I want to be super clear.
I want you to know what you’re purchasing, know what you’re enrolling in and know exactly what you’re getting.
Each course has its own separate “about” page where you can read more details about exactly what is this course, what’s in it, and where is it going to take you? Who are you going to be when you come out of it? Because if you go through the entire course and you do what I’m saying, you will be a completely different person. Who are you going to be when you come out of this course?
My courses are legit. They are serious. It’s a deep, deep dive into each area of your life. If you think that my free stuff is helpful, if you really like the podcast, if you really like my blog posts and the free downloads, you have no idea how much of a serious dive into all this stuff the courses are. It is a heavy, serious power punch to your life. You will be different if you go through those courses.
I want you to know what you’re getting into and I explain each thing in the video and on that page.
Also, I have designed my courses so that you can start anywhere. You can start with any of them. It just depends on where you’re at and what’s popping out at you more. If you look at the description for Unburdened and you’re like, “wow, I really feel like this is really where I’m at right now” and it’s just kind of speaking to you, enroll in that to start with.
If you’re reading about Your Uncluttered Home and clutter is a huge, huge, huge drain on you right now and that’s just where you’re at, that’s where you should start.
If you just kind of want to see who I am, maybe you’re new and you don’t know what I’m all about. You just want a little taste of something and you don’t want to spend too much money, then try the Supermom Vault. That’s why I designed it.
It also depends on your budget. The courses are all priced pretty differently and the prices of my courses reflect how deep of a dive they are and how much you will get out of each one. So, if you’re able, I would always start with Your Uncluttered Home because I believe it all begins at home. It did for me in simplifying my entire life six years ago. It all started at home and it’s a domino effect from there, but it could start somewhere else for you.
I’m just telling you, I know for a fact that if you start with your home and you simplify your physical clutter you will be changed. Science shows us, my life has shown me and the lives of thousands of other women all across the globe who have done Your Uncluttered Home, have shown me that if you start at home, you are setting yourself up for success. You are changing yourself on the inside and that affects everything – you’re eating, your relationships, your calendar, your schedule. All of those things are affected by how you simplify your home.
A few months ago, I introduced “course bundles” and that means that I take two courses that go really well together and I create a bundle price, where I put them together and I slashed the price. So instead of getting Unburdened for $69 and Your Uncluttered Home for $200, I will slash Unburdened down by like 30/35 bucks and you’re getting them both for $230.
Does that make sense? It’s not a buy one get one, but it’s close and it’s a lot less. So, if you’re going to get multiple courses, you don’t really know where to start and you have the budget, you can just bundle it together and get two at once and start wherever you want or do them both at the same time.
One quick side note that I do want to say. This question isn’t in here, but it’s directly tied to the last question and I get it a lot. The way to start with my courses is once you enroll in something, just start listening. There’s always a “start here lesson” at the beginning. Start there, watch that video, listen to that audio, get that content in your brain and just start listening.
Maybe you can replace a book with my course, do what I do and listen a little bit every morning, even just five minutes. Just get through the lessons. Start taking in the content. Then what I always tell beginners who have a really full life – maybe they have a baby at home, they work a lot, they are just really busy, really overwhelmed – take one week and spend 15 minutes every morning listening to the course. Then the next week, take that 15 minutes and apply what you learned last week, every day for 15 minutes every morning. That’s it.
If you can get in an hour, if you end up doing 30 minutes instead – great! But just have the goal. Set a timer for 15 minutes, listen to the course every day for 15 minutes for one week. Then the next week, take action on the course for 15 minutes every day. Just 15 minutes. Start there and keep that pattern of every other week taking in the course and the weeks in between taking action on the course and you will slowly, but surely change your life.
And really that’s not that slowly. That’s a lot. It’s going to go quick and you’re going to see a huge difference in yourself, your home and your life.
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This was an episode of The Purpose Show. Did you know there is an exclusive community created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions surrounding The Purpose Show episodes? And to get you to actually take action and make positive changes on the things that you learn here? Go be a part of it. To join go to facebook.com/groups/purposefulmamas.
Thank you so much for tuning in. If you are ready to uplevel and really take action on the things I talk about on my show, and get step-by-step help from me, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, courses, classes, and ways to learn more about what the next step might look like for you and to focus on whatever you might need help with in whatever season you are in right now.
I am always rooting for you, friend!
See ya next time!
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