Exploring Minimalism and Reducing my Stuff

“Love people. Use things.  Not the other way around.” – Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus,  The Minimalists

While I haven’t focused much on it, simplifying my life by reducing what I own is one of my objectives in this 52 week experiment.  The quote from the Minimalists really spoke to me.  How many times have I said, “I love X!”, X being whatever object I had purchased.  Did I really love it?  Well, maybe for a week or two and then the high wore off and I had to buy something else to feel happy.   While marketing teams of large corporations like to tell us what we need to be happy, those of us on a zero waste or reduce our waste journey will confirm that stuff really doesn’t provide long lasting happiness.  It just takes away our hard earned money and uses up our space so that we have to buy more storage containers or a bigger house.

I recently heard the priestess of Zero Waste, Bea Johnson, speak at a local community event in Vaudreuil.  Someone said that they had a lot of reusable shopping bags and they didn’t want to give them away because “they might need them”.   She wasn’t sure what she should do.  Bea gave an interesting story from her life to address the question.  She said that when her son was 12, he had to attend an event where he needed a suit.  She searched and searched at local used clothing shops but was unable to find what she needed.  This was surprising to her because there were many Jewish families living in her area and she knew that they likely had suits that their sons had used for their bar mitzvahs sitting unused in their closets.   This made me realize that I am hanging to things “just in case” I need them.  I too could be preventing someone from getting what they need by not sharing it.  I went through my reusable shopping bags and I also found that I just had too many that I was keeping “just in case”:

I put them on Varage Sale for free and a woman who brings clothes to homeless people immediately reached out to me.  She was thrilled to get the bags.  This is a sure sign that I was holding onto things that other people needed more than I did.

With this in mind, I rearranged the basement.  I felt it was too cluttered :

and by removing a few things, suddenly I had a whole new basement:

I used pillows, a bench and a throw that I had elsewhere and helped declutter the living room too.  In addition to freeing space and making me enjoy my basement, I did not have to spend a penny on this redo.  The excess items are currently on sale on Varage sale.  Eventually I will just give them away.

The kitchen is another area where my cupboards and drawers are overflowing.  Even though I moved twice in the last 8 years, I still had too much stuff.  As my daughters will eventually be moving out on their own, I decided to collect boxes of things for them and then give away the rest.

Most of my drawers looked like this:

A jumble of disorganized stuff.  After a few hours, I was able to reach a level of minimalism that I was comfortable with and that was well organized:

This was not the 4 utensils that Bea Johnson had in her drawer (spatula, wooden spoon, knife and whisk) but it was definitely a lot less than before.  I even ended up with empty space in my cupboards:

I ended up with lots of items for my daughters and some things to give away:

Hmm… could minimalism be something I actually like?   Surprisingly, I feel freer and lighter after this exercise.  The Minimalists have a 30 day challenge that I have yet to try: Day 1, get rid of 1 item, Day 2, get rid of 2 items, Day 3, get rid of 3 items and so on.  By the 30th day, you have to get rid of 30 things.  This is definitely on my to do list… especially for the rest of my cupboards and closets which have yet to be reviewed.  In fact, I plan to do as Marie Kondo suggests in her fabulous book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up”.  Her recommendation: only keep things that you love.  This is a bit contradictory with the Minimalists who tell you that you shouldn’t love your stuff….but hey, what do I know.  I still have too much stuff and need to find a way to reduce what I own.

Challenge for the Week:  Are you holding on to things that you don’t need “just in case” like I was (and still am in some cases)?  Are you up for a minimalism challenge? Or have you already purged and minimized?  Please share your tricks with me.  I need all the help I can get!