Posted 730 days ago

What Living in Europe has Taught me About Living Simply

by Rachelle Mee-Chapman

In February 2008 our family of four moved from our six-bedroom communal home in Seattle, Washington to a fifth floor two-bedroom flat in Copenhagen, Denmark. My husband Paul had the opportunity to take a job transfer, and the thought of living and traveling in Europe appealed, so we jumped into a big adventure.

As we considered and prepared for the move, we were surprised to find that two of our biggest motivations were the opportunity to downsize our belongings, and the possibility of living without a car. These seemed like very un-exotic reasons to make such a big life decision, but the possibility of living with less caught our imagination.

Eight months later we have come to realize just how significant our downsizing changes would be. Not only are we car-free and considerably stuff-reduced, but other simple living changes have emerged naturally out of our new cultural lifestyle. Most of these are intimately connected to our family life, and impact our two young daughters, Eden (10) and Cate (8.) We’re thrilled that as a family we are physically experiencing new lessons about simplicity. We know that when we return to the States we won’t have the same kind of access to great public transport, or well-planned pedestrian neighborhoods to make European-style simple living possible. But we are making notes now about how we want to apply some of the lessons we’ve learned here to life in the States. Here are the two biggest lessons and the tips we’ll take back.

Car-Free Living
Few U.S. cities have public transportation systems like the metros and trains of Europe. But there are ways that we can apply some of our car-free lessons to life in the States.

• Make it a priority to choose a house or apartment near enough to a bus line to allow one of us to commute to work via public transport.
• Commit to living within biking or walking distance of the children’s school.
• Instead of paying to join a gym, we will do most our grocery shopping by bike or walking. I didn’t do this in the States before, because I thought it would take ‘more time.’ But now I’ve realized that if my grocery shopping is my exercise for the day, it actually saves time.

• Encourage our children to bike by making sure we have the right equipment for their ages and stages. Bike seat, tag-a-long bikes, power-assist bikes for hilly cities (like Seattle), and even bikes with cargo carriers make car-free living much more do-able as a family; as does rain gear and good helmets. And really, why do you need to ride in spandex? Life in CHP has shown us that biking in everyday clothes is totally possible – I see men in business suits and women in heels on bikes everyday in Europe, and children wear inexpensive rain pants and slickers so they arrive at school warm and dry. It makes me wonder why we’ve made such a big deal out of biking gear in the U.S.

Simple Eating
Flowing out of the car-free lifestyle has been a corresponding change in our eating habits. Because Europeans pay high costs for gasoline, groceries and other supplies are not shipped around the country nearly as much as they are in the States. There are less prepared foods trucked from one end of the continent to the other, and produce is available on more of a seasonable basis. Restaurant food is very expensive, and delivery is nearly nonexistent. Stores are not open after hours, and everything is closed on Sundays. This was hard to get used to at first. But now that we’ve got the hang of it, we find we are spending less time shopping for food, less money on eating out, and more enjoyable family time in the kitchen teaching the kids to eat and cook well. When we go back to the States I’ll take these lessons with us:

• Buy in small batches. It’s better to walk to the store every day or so than to do one mega trip a week. We waste less food because we don’t by too many ingredients at once and then forget to use them in time; and we buy what sounds good for that day so our meals are more satisfying.
• Get real about time. It really doesn’t take that much longer to cook without prepared foods, and everything tastes so much better. Once you get a repertoire down of quick-fix dinners, it’s fairly effortless. I never spend more than an hour making dinner; and because we are cooking every day now, I’m more motivated to have the children help in the kitchen, so they are learning how to cook. (You can follow our experience with this at our blog, Food Hero , for recipes and ideas.)
• Stick to a smaller fridge. Our old house came with two big non-energy efficient fridge/freezers. Food was constantly molding the dark recesses of the big fridges, and I often felt frozen by the sheer number of cooking ingredients I had to choose from. With our half-sized Eurofridge, there’s less in the cooler and it’s easier to see what we have to work with so the dinner idea comes more quickly. Plus the kids can more easily find and make their own snacks without yelling “Mom, I can’t find the ____.”

• Kick the delivery habit. When we first moved, I missed delivery so much! (And to be honest, I sometimes still do.) But by not ordering-in we save money and create more family memories. Our $40 a week pizza habit (more if we ordered salad and drinks) is now a $20 expenditure at most, and the kids are building up a big cache of memories as Friday nights are now “homemade pizza night.” They look forward to Fridays all week because they get to make their own personal pizzas, and then we watch a movie or play a game together. Soon they’ll be able to make the dough on their own – an accomplishment they’ll feel so proud of!

From lunchboxes without waste, to a much reduced wardrobe, families in Denmark live a simpler, greener, more satisfying lifestyle. We’re excited to adapt all the lessons we are gaining in our life abroad to our life in the States. For more ideas and tips, you can follow our Immigrant Diaries (http://www.magpie-girl.com/category/immigrant-diaries/) at Magpie Girl, where I’ll be highlighting more simple living ideas during the month of September. Simple living is a doable, sastisfying lifestyle change that is good for our environment, our communities, our bodies, and our spirit. I hope you’ll comment here and at Magpie Girl blog so we can create a pool wisdom and inspiration together!

Rachelle Mee-Chapman is the former Abbess at Monkfish-Abbey in Seattle, Washington and now writes about spirituality, creativity, and life as an ex-pat at Magpie Girl. You can find her weekly column on Mondays at BlogHer), and throughout the week at Food Hero and Minti Parenting.

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