Anna Kilpatrick doesn’t have a bedroom. Or even a bed. The a 52-year-old content creator from East Sussex sleeps on a wide shelf in her hallway so that her two children, 21 and 18, can have their own rooms. And yet, she says, she has “enough”. She doesn’t hanker after a bigger house or shinier car. “Having fewer things is freedom,” she says. Kilpatrick, who shares such ideas with her 104K Instagram followers (@not.needing.new), is part of a small but growing community of “enough-luencers”. The concept is similar to deinfluencing – where content creators discourage followers from buying into trends – but is also about celebrating already having enough, and, crucially, feeling happier for it.
In her new book, Not Needing New: A Practical Guide to Finding the Joy of Enough, Kilpatrick lists the benefits of living with less: “An increased sense of calm, less anxiety through clutter, free time away from maintaining the home, a healthier bank balance and reduced debt, children who are learning how to manage delayed gratification.”
And if it is she’ll move to a larger flat. Which would be an interesting proof of the contention, no?
‘And yet, she says, she has “enough”…’
So, her book is free, right?
No, because there’s the production cost if it is in print. It could be free if online.
I’ve done one of those free onliners.
By dedicating 2 hours daily to this online job, I brought in $16,453 last month. It’s incredibly simple to start and doesn’t require any specific skills, making it perfect for anyone. For a student like me, this has been the ultimate solution to balancing my studies and finances…
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For More… Rb.gy/axcdam
To judge from her photographs online, she doesn’t economise on lipstick, blusher or cosmetic fillers…
She looks quite shaggable until you remember she’s a Progressive, and you’d come away with PTSD. No wonder hubby fucked off.
…you’d come away with PTSD.
I wouldn’t hang around for the pillow-talk…
Eats roots & leaves. You’d have to get through the “eats” bit first. That’s where the PTSD lies. And then you’d get her horizontal and find she wasn’t fun, or wants dirty talk/stuff, or a bit of vigour, and regrets it later…
…her two children, 21 and 18, can have their own rooms. … children who are learning how to manage delayed gratification.
Delayed gratification? Some might call that “failure to launch”.
I don’t claim that men jockeying for status with fast cars, shiny watches and hot babes is big or clever, but it seems a far better way than this ostentatious self-sacrifice.
Why would anyone take advice from someone whose life choices have led her to sleeping on a shelf?
What is a bed, other than a comfortable shelf? Ask Nicola Sturgeon about sleeping in a camper van …
Fats Waller used to sing about being happy on the shelf. But he had a different meaning in mind.
Though I suppose that meaning might apply to her too.
I thought Fats was more interested in loose shoes, tight pussy and a warm place to shit?
Or she’s installed an expensive fold-down bed with a Simba/Emma high-end mattress in her ante-room, and she pretends that she’s slumming it….Never take these virtue-signallers at their word…
Aye, and if her children are of the same sex why do they need a bedroom each?
They want to goon in private?
This is also a lot about women hitting a certain age.
The years from about 15-50, women have the goal of getting/keeping a man, building a nest for a family. Having a big place, a massive budget for clothes to look good to get men, making sure everything is nice for the toddlers matters.
Once the kids are grown, they’re happy with a small place and some books to read.
But not, surely, a shelf to sleep on!
And cats, lots of cats.
“Once the kids are grown, they’re happy”
In my experience, once that happens they never are.
15-25: prime time: young and nubile, with lots of male attention…and girls just wanna have fun…perhaps lots of cock and a career of sorts…
25-35: bloom fading and the biological clock is ticking…those who are not neurotic feminists find a man and perhaps reproduce…while working ‘cos financial independence…
30-50: Work and divorce/work and two-parent family (blended?)/ work and single-parent family/or just work. With teenagers…
50-60: post-menopausal energy surge. And looking after aged parents…
60-80: retirement, gardening, grandchildren…
In my eighth decade, I am aiming to sell much of my accumulated stuff and so improve my bank balance.
You will likely be disappointed in just how little that accumulated stuff sells for.
This is caused (at least where I live) by a huge supply. Everyone dumps their accumulated stuff at the “thrift store”, where some is sold for a tiny fraction of new price. The rest eventually goes to the landfill.
Point taken, but I used to deal in English 17th/18thC portraits, antique bronzes, rare books, etc, so I now have two houses with outbuildings full of such stuff…and my daughter is not interested…
Imagine being well-off enough to have a house with a hall wide enough to have a bed in it.
Innit.
Perhaps her problem is that there’s no money in “content creation”, whatever that is. I thought AI did all that now? Also, where’s her bloke? Oh…
That said, the less shit you have, the less time and energy you have to spend worrying about it, maintaining it, keeping it clean, etc. etc.
The joy of nothingness. “You will have nothing and be happy.”
Thanks. I was going to ask if ‘content creator’ paid more than book author.
I’m reminded of Seinfeld TV show, “a show about nothing.” One wonders how Frau Kilpatrick can write . . . create . . . a whole book about nothing. Are the last 11 chapters blank?
“Buy this book. It’s about nothing.”
Technically, Seinfeld was not a show about nothing, but a show about how a stand-up comedian gets his material, hence the opening and closing wraparounds of Jerry on stage.
It was the show-within-a-show pitched to NBC execs in an episode where the cast went out to LA that was the “show about nothing”.
Thanks for the pendantry.
Do internet search for “show about nothing” and you know what comes up. It’s now part of the culture. What the content creators say doesn’t matter anymore.
And often insuring it, too…
Rough rule of thumb is that if you’re not using something regularly, don’t own it. It’s just easier, cheaper to rent it, or pay someone else to do the thing.
I own almost no tools. Some basic stuff like screwdrivers, hammer, drill. Anything else I hire it or get a bloke in. I know people who have a concrete breaker in the garage collecting dust. Why would you spend £600 on that instead of renting for £50? How often are you going to break concrete?
I had an older pal in the days when cars were seriously unreliable. He bought specialist tools for maintenance and repair jobs on the grounds that they’d pay for themselves in three or four years. Which supports your point: if you’re not going to use it regularly don’t buy it.
We didn’t even buy ourselves a washing machine until we had a bun in the oven.
The other thing with that is you have to add in your time. Not only repair time, but learning time, screwing up time and cost.
I think a lot of the economic value comes if you quite like doing it. Some blokes love doing car stuff. I quite like putting up shelves, removing trees, fixing laptops. I make lemon sorbet if lemons are on cheap. But I’m certain that my labour spent on it isn’t really worth it compared to shop bought (although home made is better), but as I quite enjoy it, I don’t consider it a waste of time.
Exactly, WB. See also: allotments and growing your own veg. And remember the wise words of Hilaire Belloc:
Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
“I own almost no tools. Some basic stuff like screwdrivers, hammer, drill. Anything else I hire it or get a bloke in. “
“The other thing with that is you have to add in your time. Not only repair time, but learning time, screwing up time and cost.”
If you spend all your time hauling yourself off to the local hire shop you’re wasting a lot of time and money. From where I’m standing decent equipment never loses its value, as long as you buy good quality second hand kit in the first place. Let some other shmuck have all the initial depreciation, then even if it sits in your shed for a decade and you use it 5 times it’ll still be worth more than you paid for it. The new stuff always rises in price and drags the second hand kit up with it. Most of my farm machinery is worth more now than I paid for it a decade or more ago, and I’ve had a decade’s work out of it.
The other way to look at it is hand tools are so cheap these days that buying a tool for one job will pay for it (over getting a contractor in) so you’re ahead of the game from the start, plus you’ll get at least a couple of other jobs out of it for free before it gives up the ghost.
There is some joy in the ownership of tools. I have been buying tools as I needed them for 50 years. I view them now as a collection, as a numismatist views his coins.
Well, the 21-year-old should have moved out by now.
I was gone at 17. Couldn’t afford to feed myself but swings and roundabouts.
Whatever floats your boat; knock yourself out!
Just don’t seek to impose that on the rest of us.
Can she tell the government to make do with less, too, please?
“In her new book, Not Needing New:”
I might buy this if I see a copy in my local second-hand bookshop.
21 and 18 is not “children”.
People featured in that article:
Anna Kilpatrick, a content creator
Charlie Gill (female, by the look of it), a content creator
Melanie Rickey, a podcaster and fashion editor
Annie Phillips, an upcycling influencer
TV presenter Patrick Grant, here creating his own lawn
Keyworkers, one and all.
One useful piece of info. What’s 100K followers on Instagram worth? Apparently, bugger all. Extrapolate to UTube etc.
I think that there is an argument for striking a balance between wanting lots of stuff and finding contentment with what you have. I could have been quite a bit more wealthy if I had carried on working for an extra five years. I was a lot happier for those five years despite being materially poorer. I’ve got everything that I need and a lot of what I want so I partly agree with her. I sleep on a bed that I built in my wood shop.