Last year, 66-year-old Lauren Knoblauch sold or donated nearly everything she owned, from her two-bedroom home on a suburban Seattle lake to her furniture and many of her clothes. She moved everything else, two small carloads’ worth, into her new home: a downtown apartment that, at less than 150 sq. ft., is smaller than the average U.S. master bedroom.
The move came as Knoblauch, who works in inmate rehabilitation, pondered her impending retirement. “I started thinking about what I was passionate about,” she said. “I wanted to see opera in Europe, to spend money on what was exciting to me.”