The No Spend Year

In her late 20s, Cait Flanders found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle that grips so many of us: earn more, buy more, want more, rinse, repeat. Even after she worked her way out of nearly $30,000 of consumer debt, her old habits took hold again. When she realized that nothing she was doing or buying was making her happy - only keeping her from meeting her goals - she decided to set herself a challenge: she would not shop for an entire year. The Year of Less documents Cait's life for 12 months during which she bought only consumables.

In 2014, Elizabeth and Nate Thames were conventional 9-5 young urban professionals. But the couple had a dream to become modern-day homesteaders in rural Vermont. Determined to retire as early as possible in order to start living each day - as opposed to wishing time away working for the weekends - they enacted a plan to save an enormous amount of money: well over 70 percent of their joint take-home pay. Dubbing themselves the Frugalwoods, Elizabeth began documenting their unconventional frugality and the resulting wholesale lifestyle transformation on their eponymous blog.

"The dirty little secret about most organizing advice is that it's written by organized people," says blogger, speaker, and decluttering expert Dana K. White. "But that's not how my brain works. I'm lost on page three." Dana blogs at A Slob Comes Clean, chronicling her successes and failures with her self-described "deslobification process". In the beginning she used the name Nony (short for aNONYmous), because she was sharing her deep, dark slob secret. Now she has truly come clean - with not only her real name but the strategies she has developed.

Spark Joy is an in-depth, room-by-room guide to decluttering and organising your home. It covers every room in the house, from bedrooms and kitchens to bathrooms and living rooms, as well as a wide range of items in different categories, including clothes, photographs, paperwork, books, cutlery, cosmetics, shoes, bags, wallets and valuables. The secret to Marie Kondo's unique and simple KonMari tidying method is to focus on what you want to keep, not what you want to get rid of.

Francine Jay pioneered the simple living movement with her self-published bestseller, The Joy of Less. In this fully redesigned and repackaged edition - featuring never-before-seen content - Jay brings her philosophy to more listeners who are eager to declutter. Rather than the "crash diet" approach found in other tidying up books, Jay shares simple steps to cultivate a minimalist mindset and form new habits, paving the way to lasting success.

Trend forecaster James Wallman reveals the world's growing sense of stuffocation – and how we can move away from it. We have more stuff than we could ever need - clothes we don't wear, kit we don't use, and toys we don't play with. But having everything we thought we wanted isn't making us happier. It's bad for the planet. It's cluttering up our homes. It's making us feel 'stuffocated' and stressed - and it might even be killing us.

For most people, budgeting conjures up the same feelings as, say, prison and dieting. But your initial instinct couldn't be further from the truth. You just haven't budgeted the right way. You Need a Budget will teach you four simple rules to completely revolutionize the way you think about managing your money. With a budget, you'll break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, get out of debt, and save more money. A liberating, enabling, empowering budget will actually make you feel more free, not more restricted.

A popular minimalist blogger and author of The More of Less shows you how to methodically turn your home into a place of peace, contentment, and purposeful living.  

Having spent the last few years in Denmark uncovering the secrets of the happiest country in the world, Helen Russell knows it's time to move back to the UK. She thinks. Maybe. Or maybe that's a terrible idea. Like many of us, she suffers from chronic indecision and a fear of change. So she decides to give herself a year for an experiment: to overhaul every area of her life, learn how to embrace change and become a lean, mean decision-making machine.

Everywhere we turn, we hear negative financial news - that the American Dream is dead or that the little man can’t get ahead. Our culture feeds us the lie that it’s impossible to become a millionaire in America today, but it’s time you heard the truth.  In his newest book, Everyday Millionaires: How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth - and How You Can Too, Chris Hogan destroys millionaire myths that are keeping everyday people from achieving financial independence.

If simplicity is an art, then Dominique Loreau is a master. Having lived in Japan for many years and inspired by oriental philosophy, Dominique Loreau discovered the beauty of a life well lived through the art of simplicity. Her lifestyle rests on the principle of 'less is more' and imbues all areas of existence, from the material to the spiritual.

Negotiation is the most important skill you can develop to get what you want in business and life. But we often struggle to do it effectively. We fail to recognise opportunities, we prepare poorly or we let ourselves be led by others or by our own fear. Natalie Reynolds, negotiation expert and CEO of negotiation consultancy Advantage Spring, will teach you how to avoid these pitfalls, to keep cool and in control and to achieve what you want every time - whether you're responsible for large deals at work or simply renegotiating your phone contract.

In this era of mass consumption, we are all drowning in 'stuff', despite our best efforts to keep on top of the clutter that collects in our homes, our office spaces and even our cars. All this clutter causes us mental anguish. However, as we all know, throwing things away can be difficult - it clashes with the values instilled in us from an early age of not wasting things, reusing items and keeping things 'for a rainy day'. Simply put, we feel guilty about getting rid of things. Enter Nagisa Tatsumi and her bold suggestion - that it's okay to throw stuff away.

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, real women with real families who are constantly growing and changing simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is a home that is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

The best of the Minimalists! This book by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus collects the most relevant essays - some short, some long - from their popular website, TheMinimalists.com. This collection has been edited and organized to create an experience that's considerably different from reading individual selections online. From simple living, decluttering, and finances to passion, health, and relationships, Essential is for anyone who desires a more intentional life.