Some of you may have heard me say that I will be moving soon. I've been saying this for twelve years now, but it is starting to look like I will actually be doing it soon. Thank goodness I have had twelve years to get ready.
The Easy Part Of Culling Your Stuff
Cycle through these three steps until you are down to only the stuff you want to keep:
Throw one thing away, or put it aside for donation, every single day. This can be as small as a broken pencil, or a single document, but it must be something. You will find that, most days, you'll do more than just one thing, but if it's only one thing, you will have met with success!
Give stuff to friends, family, freecycling, or charitable organizations. This is all very satisfying, and, in the last case, tax deductible.
Sell stuff, which puts spending money in your pocket, and is highly pleasurable social contact.
Here's how I went about it
The first part of the house I tackled was the basement. My basement is HUGE. Sixteen foot ceilings and about 2000 square feet of unfinished room to store crap in. When my hubby and three young kids moved here 21 years ago, we brought a lot of boxes of stuff with us, and stashed all those boxes in the basement. There were business records, personal records, projects "in progress", toys, books, records, memorabilia from before we met, etc.
Water had ruined the business records - out with them! Mold ruined anything with paper or wood in it - garbage! I hired guys to carry it all up and take it to the street for bulk pick up, every month a bit more of it, until all the garbage was gone. Some of it was hard to get rid of - the rocking chair my mother rocked me in for instance - but it was ruined, so out it went. The good news is that, once you start throwing things out, it gets easier and easier to do. It feels liberating!!! My basement is now completely empty!!!
Next up was the garage, and lastly the house proper. Same strategy - I threw out anything that was useless to me or anyone else.
Then I started giving stuff away. Friends and helpers got good stuff, and a great deal went to charity. If I knew of someone who was upgrading to a larger home, I invited them over. The charity I use has made at least twenty visits to my house over the past few years. At around 15 boxes or bags a visit, that's at least 300 boxes or bags that I've donated! It's astonishing how much stuff I had in this house!!!
I then started putting the stuff I wanted to try to sell in the garage, setting it all up like a cute little store.
I have maintained what I call My Store for the past year or more. I list the larger or more valuable items on various marketplaces, and put those items, along with everything else I would like to sell, in my garage. When folks come to buy that one thing they saw online, they usually leave with a couple other things. It's much easier for me if folks walk off with stuff for a couple bucks, than it would be for me to package it up for donation or drop it off at a thrift shop.
The Hard Part
The above are the easy parts. Next to discuss is the stuff that is very hard for me to part with: children's art, and photographs.
Culling My Children's Art
After going through it all and throwing quite a bit away, I still had way too much. How could I just throw away even more of the masterpieces my children produced for the 13 years they were in school? Finger paintings, early scribbles, early writings, shells with stones glued on, sand handprints, etc. They brought home so very much of it!!! I had kept it all, and every piece was precious.
This is my most ingenious tip. I'm packing, so I need packing material. I had been wadding up paper to wrap fragile items in, or to fill up a box, when I had a eureka moment.
I now use my children's art as packing material!!!
This way I get to both keep it, and throw it away. Win win!
The Hardest Of Them All - The Photographs
My hubby and his father were avid photographers. They both got everything developed in doubles, and kept the negatives. It was easy for me to toss the negatives - which saved a lot of space - and any duplicates. I got rid of all those envelopes photos used to come back to us in, further reducing the sheer bulk of photographs. Then I spent several weeks throwing away photos, by sitting every evening in front of a TV, putting photos to toss in a big box to my right, then sorting the rest into smaller boxes, one for each remaining member of this family.
But I still had way too many!! Half a dozen large boxes of photos still to look through. I became resigned to carting these photos around with me for the rest of my life.
Then I figured out the remedy for getting rid of even more photographs.
Top Tip!
Let your kids do this!
Do not watch them while they are at it. My kids were ruthless with the photographs, and I do not miss a single thing they threw away. I got rid of several large boxes of photographs this way. I had to stop them when they were about to throw away ALL the photographs from my own childhood, but with those of their own, they kept very few. Bliss.
When I think I've gotten it down to just the stuff I want to keep, I find more things I can live without. Perhaps this will be endless, and eventually I will have no possessions left to my name. That sounds lovely to me.
Packing is a breeze now that I've rid my house of the stuff I don't want to keep. I have very little stuff now. I'll move to a furnished place, and maybe even donate the few pieces of furniture I have left.
