What's in my bag? Minimalist handbag setup

minimalism is a very broad topic and one thing that many people forget to think about when they organize their space and their world is the thing that they bring with them all the time which is their handbag so today i'm going to share with you what my version of a minimalist handbag setup looks like and let's dive in hello hello and a warm welcome back to simple essentials if you are new here my name is emmy and in this channel we talk about simplifying your life in as many ways as possible you'll find a lot of content here around meal planning budgeting organizing your space organizing your thoughts and today i'm going to talk about a handy little space that a lot of people forget about which is the handbag now if you don't use the handbag at all obviously skip over this video but if you have a handbag of some type and you use it regularly you may want to keep watching today so i'm going to show you what i keep in my handbag to keep it sort of as minimal as possible and so first up before we look at the content i wanted to show you the bag itself so this is a i don't know i have medium sized pants this is um a reasonably decent sized bag that i use pretty much every day i actually bought this furry bag you're gonna see it in my second hand shopping video that's coming up i actually bought this bag at an op shop it's a real leather bag for one dollar here in australia so this is the bag that i use most days and you will see that it's black and you will see that there's a theme because i keep things very minimal and very easy to mix and match with other things now back in the day when we used to be in the office a lot more i do i did used to use this bag and i still have it it's one of my all-time favorites it is from kiki k i believe i don't know if that brand exists where you live but it's a really good bag it's a good quality leather bag i bought it for myself as a bit of a treat and it's got lots of room for um laptops and all sorts of things like that now it has been with me for a while so it is worn and very loved um and when things go back to a bit more normal here in australia and we start going to the office again i will probably be using this bag a lot more but all the stuff that you're going to see in what i have in my handbag other than my laptop and perhaps a water bottle would just be transferred in like a minute over to this bag for the days that i would be using it i also have a third bag believe it or not a minimalist with three handbags i have this little tiny clutch which i use for it's from kate hill not a fancy brand or anything um it's got a couple of pockets inside it um and it's got a strap that you can take off if you don't really want to have a shoulder strap but this one is really great for if i need to dress up a little bit or i want to have something sort of a bit more fancy and again you'll see most of the stuff in my bigger handbag except from perhaps my sunglasses would just transfer into this one when i need it so that's the setup that i have naturally if you love pops of color and things like that have as many bags or as many colors as you like i do find for me personally that black is a really simple thing to match with pretty much any outfit i used to have a handbag of about this size that i've actually just gotten rid of that was sort of a dark green that also matched quite a lot of things but just think about that when you're choosing your bag or your bags have a really clear purpose for them and for me personally i never really keep more than three bags because the three that i showed you is pretty much all i'm ever gonna need all right so this here like i showed you before is my day-to-day bag and it's got one outside pocket i'll show you what's in there in a second it's got a main compartment and in here i've got two sort of little little pockets and one that has a zip on it here as well so i'll show you that in a second but um one thing that i always make sure to have super handy is a grocery bag so i'm a big fan in reducing plastic wherever we can and this tiny little bag is really easy it's just from woolworth's here in australia um so i always have that in my handbag because i use it several times a week when i go shopping and i haven't planned for it or something and obviously with the current pandemic i have a little bottle of hand sanitizer as well so that's pretty much everything that i put in the outside pocket sometimes i'll put some tissues or any other things that i need handy access to but you know not too worried about the safety in my main compartment you'll see that it's far from full this is about half full at the moment so i can actually easily fit a small umbrella or a water bottle plus all the things that i've got in here already so i'm pretty happy with it so this is my ideal day-to-day handbag size so in here i've got my sunglass case which you can see it's quite big it's summer here in australia at the moment so you kind of need that i've got my phone uh i've got my keys and for those of you who've watched the channel for a while you'll know that my cat freya looks a bit like this a friend of mine thank you cat found this adorable keychain so that's what i have my keys on um my teeny tiny wallet and i will show you a little bit more in a second about my system for my wallet because it's possible to have a tiny wallet if you want to i know some people carry around like ginormous ones so that's basically everything that's in the main pocket of my bag in the two little side ones i've got headphones because every now and then i do leave the house and i will listen to a podcast or something um and in the other side pocket i have a couple of keys that i use a bit less often so i've got my bike lock key i've got the spare car key because believe it or not i actually don't drive all that often we live very close to a shop and things like that so that goes in the other little little pouch in there and then in this zippy pocket here um i keep a couple of things that i find super duper handy um i always have a pen in my bag this is great for traveling it's great for all sorts of things i remember when i had to take my very first covered test you had to have a pen with you to fill in it's just nice to have one with you nothing fancy then i've got this little handy thing this is basically a fold out hairbrush with a little mirror in it and it's got a little heart on it and i just got this from like a dollar shop years ago it's super lightweight and it's really handy to have with you um if you need to um lip balm with some sunscreen in it um this is a little pack of uh fresh mints that i got at an expo i went to sometimes just got a little you flip the corner off and then you open the thing so it's just some mints in there and the final thing that i have in this magic narnia bag is this little pouch here i'm a very big believer in compartmentalizing things and in this one i have um what you can call a survival kit i've got some feminine hygiene products i've got some band-aids i've got a wet wipe panadol hair tie and i think from memory i even have a little sewing kit in here but it's really nice because it keeps it really contained and when i'm moving between bags i've got the other two here in the background so if i'm moving between bags and i feel like i need to bring this little kit i'll just chuck it in whichever bag that i'm using so it's kind of handy that way it means that i can very very easily move everything across in a matter of a minute or so and because i have them in different compartments in the bag i know that in this zippy pocket here the things i just showed you they will always be in there so if i need to find my pan at all quickly or something like that i know exactly where it is same thing goes for my headphones which always go in this little pocket here and it means that they're not like tangling around in the bag and being all annoying but of course whatever bag situation and setup that you have it's important that it works for you okay let's let's talk about wallets um i find that there's like two kind of camps with wallets especially nowadays when you can have a lot of things on your phone as well a lot of people use their phone to pay with and stuff like that i actually still use good old-fashioned credit cards but it's something to be really mindful of what you prefer so for ages i had one of those large wallets with lots and lots of cards in them and i found this in a little shop i think we were in croatia or something so we were out traveling i've been on the lookout for this for a while and it's not hard to find wallets of this size but it's hard to find them with a coin pocket or coin purse so this is a decent um i think this is actually real leather it says picard if you are curious to try it out it says picard germany anyway i didn't buy this for the brand i bought it for the size because i really love it and it's very very simple i've got room in here for cash um i have a business card for my business if you are curious i am actually a career coach that's my line of work so i'll leave a link below to my career coaching website if you're curious but in this little pocket here i've got my company company credit card and my business card in the other pocket here inside where the money is i have my travel card and my driver's license that i use for public transport um not the driver's license obviously the travel card on this side i have our joint credit card and my personal credit card and underneath the little coin pocket i have my two health care cards and that's all that i carry with me and then you're like but amy you like budgeting you like um you know other cards where do you keep all your discount cards and things like that in my phone i'm gonna show you one of my favorite uh apps and hats off to my lovely partner paul who got me on to this but i use an app called stow card s-t-o-c-a-r-d and all that it does you open up the app in your phone sorry it's a bit glary and you can literally download all the memberships that you have so for example my woolworths card is my grocery store discount card my travel cards other things like that and what it does is it allows you to scan your physical plastic card that you might have i think it even works with library cards as well actually so anything that's got a barcode or a membership number on it you can either scan it or manually put it in and this means that i only need this little space and i still have access to all my discounts all my special promos now it doesn't obviously work for gift cards and things like that i think you actually need to bring the physical gift card with you as a security thing but that's a handy tip if you have a giant wallet and you find that you need a giant handbag for the giant wallet this is i absolutely love it i've had this for about two and a half years and i hope it's got a few more years of life in it now that is just my personal setup um i don't have children so i don't need to track like a bigger bag with me i don't need nappies or anything like that however i did used to work as a nanny many years ago almost 20 years ago now and that little emergency kit that you saw me have in my handbag that idea was actually born from dealing with kids a lot um and you know needing to have certain medications or wet wipes and things like that so i used to have a much bigger version of this little pouch when i worked as a nanny um but it was really handy because it helped me realize as well that there are some things that you need to have with you and some things that you only need at times so for example i don't need a bottle of water or an umbrella every single time i leave the house but it's really handy that i can easily fit it into my bag this also by the way really well fits um an a5 notebook and or my kindle because quite often if i'm taking the train or the bus to go see a friend quite often i want to bring my kindle so i can read while i'm traveling so pick a bag and pick a setup that works for you but you'd be surprised at how little you actually need to have with you and the biggest thing i see people do is that they have very very large wallets obviously if you pay everything with cash this tiny little um i think i've only got five dollars in there it might be fun actually for the viewers over in the states to see how fun plastic money we have here in australia but if you pay a lot of things by cash then this particular compartment might not be big enough for your preferences anyway i hope you enjoyed watching my little setup i would love to hear your tips around how you organize your handbag if you do have one or if you don't have one why don't you have one did you give up on it does it not work for you anymore and last but not least i would love to have you as a subscriber here if you haven't already subscribed like i said in my last video i will start posting weekly here and it's all the more fun for sharing it with you and especially if you want to join me as a subscriber all the best and i look forward to see you next week in another video you

Channel: Simple Essentials

Views: 31,487

Keywords: minimalism, simplicity, minimalist handbag, second hand, simple handbag set up, declutter handbag, clean out handbag, clean out your handbag, second hand bag, work bag, organize handbag, simple day bag

Id: ixA093QmnSQ

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 15 2022