I mentioned I’ve been getting rid of some of stuff, and it’s been satisfying. I’m trying to keep up the motivation to even toss, say, one lipstick, or one pair of earrings. Sometimes it can feel as if there’s no point getting rid of one item out of a hundred, but there IS a point to it, SEVERAL points:
1. It GETS RID OF THE ONE THING. Which is better than getting rid of NO things.
2. It keeps the momentum going. If I get rid of one pair of earrings I am just never going to wear, I get a little bit of that good feeling that can come from bringing order to chaos / lessening the oppression. That can motivate me to get rid of that lip balm the dentist gave me (I don’t like the flavor), a cup full of the candy canes that were still on the Christmas tree when we took it down, and a pen that doesn’t write well. Over time, this ADDS UP—and can help bolster bigger projects such as going through the filing cabinet, or packing up a batch of handmedowns.
3. There was something else, but that second point got too long and now I’ve forgotten.
My parents have been getting rid of stuff at their house too. Two downsides:
1. It’s increasing the level of stuff at MY house.
2. My mom and I like to go shopping, but neither of us feels much inclined to purchase things when we’re working to get RID of things. I guess you could call this an upside, and OH, in fact this was meant to be point three above: Continually getting rid of things helps motivate me not to continually acquire more things. But it does take some of the fun out of the shopping trips.
Here’s something else I’ve been thinking about. We talked about using the good stuff (one of my favorite comments sections ever), and I was thinking afterward, sometimes we don’t use the good stuff because we don’t want to waste it or the occasion doesn’t feel special enough, but SOMETIMES we don’t use the good stuff because we don’t LIKE it and don’t WANT to. And THAT’S a good thing to notice TOO, because sometimes our unused good stuff can do better work at someone else’s house, which can also be a huge relief to us and our storage spaces.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is this silly phenomenon: the “I have to use up this stuff I don’t like before I can use the stuff I like better.” Sometimes that’s a good policy, if we know ourselves and know that if we don’t make ourselves use up one bottle of conditioner before we start the next one, soon the entire ledge of the tub will be lined with 1/8ths-full bottles of conditioner. But SOMETIMES it’s more like a bottle of conditioner that makes our hair look greasy, or the set of 240 address labels I ordered, the ones that turned out to be ugly. But I’ve been using them on bills, month after month, because I feel as if I have to use them up before I move on to one of the five or six sets of address labels I DO like.
At the rate I send snail mail, this is going to take some time. What if I were to…put the labels I don’t like in the trash? And use the ones I like instead? This is wasteful, it IS: no one else can use those labels. But 240 labels takes up four sheets of paper. It’s a waste, but it is a small waste. And if I spend years using these, pushing all my other labels ahead of me down the line and working with, let’s face it, a limited amount of time—I could spend three years using the bad labels, and die with three years of good labels waiting to be used. I could just SWAP those: either way, four sheets of labels get wasted, but in one scenario it’s the labels I like, and in the other scenario it’s the labels I don’t. That’s it, those labels are going in the trash.
Once you have your stuff down to only what you are keeping, it’s fun to shop for stuff to organize it, or to enjoy a new use of the space you may have created. It opens you up to very focused shopping. But I know what you mean, it’s fun to look around and imagine how much you or others would enjoy novel items.
Could you find a cause to shop for? Could you get in touch with the local homeless shelter or a crisis pregnancy centre or whatever is near to your heart and see what they need? That way, you get to shop, you don’t clutter your house, and you get a double dose of good feeling by buying something cute for someone who really needs it. (I say this as someone who has never done this, so don’t attribute any worthiness to me or feel bad if it’s not what you want to do).
Oh, man. Let’s have coffee. I am am acquisitive, I love to shop and buy and spend, but I am also an obsessive declutterer.
This is expensive and time consuming and makes me feel like my house is a merry-go-round of things.
So! I’ve been doing “non-acquiring” practice. Go to a website, browse, put things in the cart, and then don’t buy. It is amazing how much fun I get from placing stuff in the cart.
I also keep a list of items I have the urge to buy. Often that gives me a satisfied feeling long enough not to purchase.
I LOVE these home maintenance posts!
I have started to do this also. put everything I like into a cart or on a wish list. it’s amazing to me that no matter how much I love something at 11pm, I can look back a few days later and wonder why the heck that thing is in my cart?
OMG yes. I love deleting stuff off my amazon cart page. So satisfying.
I love getting rid of stuff–we have a smallish house with limited storage space and I just don’t have room for every set of shower curtains we’ve ever owned. In the past, we’d clean out once a year or so and have a garage sale–but I haaaaate having garage sales. They’re the WORST. So 4-5 years ago we hit on a better solution: we keep a small box or paper grocery sack in the trunk of one of our cars, and every time we come across something we don’t want to keep (clothing that doesn’t fit anymore, a kitchen item that’s taking up space but never being used, a gift that we don’t care for) we put that item in the trunk and when the box/bag is full, we drop it at Goodwill. Our church has an annual garage sale and that always prompts us to clean out a little more, but the continual decluttering keeps our house from having piles of stuff that we intend to give away some day but which takes up space until that day comes.
Also, life is too short to use ugly labels. Toss them and use the prettiest ones first!
I do this too! Only my box of stuff is in the basement. Maybe I should move it to the car!
My current (yet unsustainable) solution for our ugly address labels and stationary and pens is to give them to the 2 year old for art. They get completely obliterated that way, and I feel good because I gave my kid an activity. (Even if said activity is peeling old labels and sticking them on paper.).
Still, the idea that I have to use up the bad before I get to the good is an interesting one, and a trap I fall in often. Hmmmm.
I so agree with this! I have found that I have a bottle of shower gel for 3 years because I don’t want to use too much of it and then run out. Or I have lip gloss that is 4 years old, and I end up throwing it away instead of using it because I am saving it for some unspecified occasion that never arrives. I am really trying to change and enjoy my things now because that is why I have them. Now, I load up the shower pouff with shower gel every time, and I am using it more often instead of “saving” it. The bonus is that I can try more flavors of gel since I will run out more frequently than every 3 years!
I agree that just doing a little bit really helps with the momentum. Question: what are you doing with the earrings that you don’t wear? I have quite a few pairs that I need to get rid of (so I can find the pairs I do enjoy wearing easily), but I am not sure what to do with them? Toss in the trash? Donate them? Sell them?
Right now what I am doing with the earrings is putting them in a baggie. I plan to offer them to mother, sister-in-law, maybe friends, and then Freecycle whatever is left. We have a page-a-day calendar, so I cut up used pages into little pieces of paper, and I’m putting the earrings in (on? through?) those, to keep them in pairs.
Excellent. Thank you for responding. :-)
Angela, might I also suggest a professional dress charity for underprivileged women? The one I donate to in DC — Suited for Change — accepts work-appropriate costume jewelry donations. And not just like, tiny post earrings but any jewelry that wouldn’t be out of place at a job interview, like the pretty but not-my-taste beaded necklace an aunt gave me for Christmas a few years back.
Great idea- thank you! I am sure they have something like that in KC. I also bet I could find a charity that donates prom dresses to high school students for some of the fancier stuff I have.
My husband has a theory about sunk costs that has made me so happy it’s almost worth the price of being married. Once something is bought, it’s a sunk cost, and whether or not you use it, it’s a sunk cost, so using it really affects nothing. One time we were at a play and I was pregnant and miserable and I wanted to leave but we had paid for the tickets, etc., etc., hand wringing, crying, etc. He told me this is a sunk cost, if you want to go, let’s go and that little thought freed me up so much I was like WHY would we leave? (again, pregnant, crazy) and I really ended up enjoying it. Throw those labels away!, is what I’m saying, with GLEE!
Yes, thank you for bringing that up! Learning about sunk costs FREED me! Sometimes, it’s like your play example, basically “I spent the money/time, let’s do this thing,” and other times it is “I am sick/too tired/etc., and forcing myself through this will not make the money/time come back.” :)
Yes, sunk costs are how I live my life. Like, if we go see a movie and realize halfway through that it’s crap, we leave. The money is spent already whether we stay or not. So the only factor that matters at that point is whether I will get enjoyment out of staying. If I won’t I’m out of there.
I’ve been reading a lot of personal finance blogs recently, and many of them talk at some point about de-cluttering and the natural progression into buying less. I love the whole concept, and it’s amazing to me how much STUFF we can actually get rid of and it has no effect on our lives. Where did it all come from? Clothes and make-up beauty products are going to be my first task. I basically wear the same wardrobe every week and never wear make-up. Why do these things take up huge spaces in my home?! I’m looking forward to hearing more from you about this!
Do you have any favorite blogs to share? They sound useful!
I have a ton of free address labels that are ugly, but still usable. I don’t send much regular mail, but I do use them to label things that I sometimes lend out to people (books, tools, tupperware, etc.) The best use I found was on raffle tickets… instead of filling out name, address/phone number on 30 tickets, I just slap on ugly address labels.
I love getting rid of stuff, as does my son. The rest of them are hoarders in the making.
I am a constant purger of possessions and also a constant shopper. It makes me feel BETTER about shopping, that I know I am not hoarding my possessions, and that I will send them on their way when finished with them.
I also have a whole philosophy about clothes involving cost per wear. So maybe a shirt at the goodwill is $2, and I only want to wear it once or twice, that’s $2/wear. Is that affordable? Hmmm. I think yes.
And what about this $40 shirt that I will wear 100 times? ALSO affordable!
I love buying little trinkets to put on my windowsill and perch on the edge of shelves and whatnot, and those are more difficult to assign value to. Is there a number of times you USE a miniature ceramic squirrel you found at the Salvation Army? In that case I just go with my gut on “is this pleasure inducing” and then when I’m getting rid of things because I have too much, I might decide that I’m tired of it, and sweep it into the donate pile.
YES! I am in a decluttering panic at the moment (just bought a new house! need to get our crap-hole ready to sell FAST!!) and it makes me never want to shop again. We have TOO. MUCH. STUFF. Now wait just a minute while I check out and see if there are any sales on kids clothes today….
(WHY OH WHY OH WHY do i do this to myself????)
(and am I the only one who suspects they are spending WAY more money by buying things because they are on SALE than if they just bought things as they needed them like a normal person??!!)
You know you have a problem when you do use the nice address labels but SAVE THE UGLY ONES. Just in case the entire universe quits making address labels. You would not want to be without address labels – good thing you saved those ugly ones! ( This is not me, of course I would never do that.)
like!
Label logic cracked me up. Good show! I have a rubber stamp for most return address stuff.
something that helps me is to think of my kids toys as consumables. Christmas and birthday come every year, we cannot just keep adding toys, like a collection. We must be getting rid of them, using them up so to speak, throughout the year as well.
I threw some crap out today, and it felt good. I try not to become nuts about this stuff though. Mess can make a person crazy but the pursuit of nothing can too, ya know?
man these posts are making me really twitchy about all the junk in my house. does anyone want to come purge it FOR me? because i don’t ever seem to get around to doing it myself, despite how good it would make me feel.
You made me laugh at myself! There are these uber-ugly address labels that I’ve been using as Scotch tape replacement, when having writing on them didn’t matter (such as taping a note to a lunch bag). Because I could not just throw the labels away, that would be wasteful.
Those suckers are going in the trash TODAY and future notes will be taped with transparent tape. Thank you for holding a mirror up to my life!
Ha! This is an awesome post, and spurred me to throw away the three boxes of peppermint bark that our real estate agent from a few years ago sends us every Christmas, and we never eat (I made a cheesecake out of it one year, but I’m not really a cheesecake person, so much husband enjoyed two slices and then it went in the trash). Also reminded me of the time I felt so triumphant for throwing away a half-used bottle of conditioner that was awful for my hair and left a super slippery film in the tub. It felt so WRONG to throw it away, but I won’t lie; that act spurred me to run up our stairs with my arms in the air all Rocky style, yelling “Adriaaaannnn!”. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that make you the happiest:)
YES YES YES. This. All of it!
So, we are thinking we may be moving. And we would be paying for this move out of our own pocket and packing all the stuff for it too. And this has motivated me to declutter like never before. And it is AMAZING how much I have held on to because I might need it or I don’t hate it or, or, or….looking at stuff as “I am going to have to PAY to move this thing across the country. And I’m also going to have to PACK it and UNPACK it” has given me permission like never before to PURGE IT. It really shows me I basically don’t really give a crap about the majority of my possessions. I am dumping/giving away/selling things I would never have dreamt of getting rid of before. It is the biggest high in the world!