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It’s no secret that I long for a simpler life, one without all the stuff and the fast past that we are currently living. To start this new way of living I believe that we need to get rid of about 80% of what we own.
I have already started the process by getting rid of a lot of our stuff. So far I reckon I have purged about 50% of our stuff. I have sold bits on eBay, taken numerous bags to the charity shops and given away anything else on *PreLoved.
With every bag that goes out of our house, I feel lighter but it is not an easy process, just when you think you are finally getting on top of it all more stuff seems to appear. Whether it be from friends passing on hand me downs, a huge pile of junk mail or Lowenna coming home from school with her latest pile of rubbish stuck together with masking tape artistic creation.
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It’s definitely an ongoing process, one that takes time and patience, something that I’m not great at. I’ve found so far the best way to deal with this is with the, one in one out method. In other words, if something comes into our house another must go, at least that way we aren’t accumulating any more items which in my mind would be going backwards.
Saying that though I have already started to notice a change, the house stays tidier for longer and when it does start to get a bit messy it’s very easy to put it right again. Don’t get me wrong I have no aspirations to live in a sterile white box with one aloe vera plant in the corner but I do think that minimal living and reducing the amount of stuff that surrounds us is the way forward.
I’m not naive in thinking that this is all going to happen overnight, we seem to have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years but if I can break it down perhaps into manageable chunks then it might just be achievable.
I feel the best way to start is with the decluttering, after all, if you have less stuff then you have less to organise. I read a quote recently which struck a chord, I cannot for the life of me find the original quote but it went something like this…
‘If you find yourself buying more stuff to organise the stuff that you already own you might have too much stuff’
At the moment I’m not entirely sure what the next process of this journey is, I have already started to look into alternative beauty products and I’d love to start zero waste shopping but implementing changes into the way you live your life is quite a hard thing to do. I plan to share our experiences, good and bad on this blog and I guess we just see where it takes us.
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Yes!! I love this!! I’m currently doing the same! <3 I was a hoarder my whole life, until I got sick and had a change of perspective. 🙂 Since then I've slowly been freeing myself of all the crap I've accumulated. I'm down to about 50% now as well and it's getting rather addictive! Good luck with the rest of your sorting! 🙂 xxx
You sound like me and you’re right it does get very addictive. I get a little buzz from every bag that goes out the door. We’ve still got a long way to go but so far I’m enjoying the process. I think sometimes it does take something drastic to happen to you or your life to make you want to make changes. Hope you are better now?
Definitely something I should do too! I don’t think if go quite as far as 80% of our stuff, but we do have a lot of unnecessary things we keep ‘just in case’… Resulting in just too much space wasted in our home!
We had loads of things that I was keeping for the ‘just in case’ scenarios. It is quite hard initially to let go but it does get easier once you get into it. My next major mission is our garage which has become a dumping ground for all sorts of random things. You should definitely give it a go, even if you just get rid of a few bags full 🙂