Sipping my coffee and reading some of my favorite blogs this morning I came upon this great article from today’s Unclutterer. It’s a compliment to my previous recent post on emotional clutter and using moving time as an opportunity to downsize one’s stuff.
During the months prior to my cross country move I sold tons of stuff on ebay and must say that I made a few thousand. All stuff I don’t miss at all. Now that says something about how much stuff we have around us that we really don’t need. Somewhere I read that most households have on average $2000 worth of stuff they could get rid of on ebay. I thought “no way” but it was definitely true for me. Next, I participated in 2 garage sales to rid of bigger items and heavy stuff like dinnerware and other ceramics. I had multiple sets of dinnerware which I never used. Lastly, whatever was left over that I didn’t want anymore, and wouldn’t sell but was in good shape, I donated to Salvation Army.
In the end with everything I sold, and donated, and got rid of I still felt like I had so much stuff to box up. Terrible! So I just keep editing and editing. Moving to LA was the greatest because we don’t have much storage space. We have 1 closet in our bedroom for clothes and a small cubby next to the kitchen for things like the vacuum, broom, paint, and a fan. Otherwise everything has to have a place in our apartment. We do not have any additional storage in the building and I refuse to ever get an outside storage unit. So whatever doesn’t have a place, goes. Lucky for me there’s a Goodwill down the street I can walk to and it’s been so handy.
I absolutely LOVE having less stuff! I’m finally beginning to achieve that minimal look I see in the design magazine editorials I so admire. It really does give me a sense of peace and calm. And today’s digital world makes it a lot easier too. As examples, I don’t have to find room for all my CDs, they are all on my computer and ipod and I also love taking pictures. Everything being digital now, I’ve even started digitizing my old photos (pre-digital cameras). I’ve scanned and archived all my family’s old slides from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, polaroids and old black and white photos. These are all irreplaceable if lost or damaged so it’s been great to now have digital backups. Now I’ve been moving on to all the remaining standard 35mm negatives from the 80s and 90s to bridge the gap to when I started taking digital photos. Yes, it’s a big undertaking but SO worth it. I can’t tell you the joy I’ve brought to so many family members and distant relatives by being able to give them copies of old photos they didn’t even know existed. I’ll be blogging about digital archiving in future posts.
Going off on a photo tangent there for a minute, but bringing it back to my original reason for posting today was the article about really taking inventory of all your stuff before a move. So give it a read and even if you’re not moving, try to look at everything in your house or apartment as if you were. Ask yourself “Would I spend the money to pack and ship and insure this item to get it across the country?” It will really help you make the tough decisions on what to keep and what to purge.
