Today is the 100-day mark until Half Penny arrives. Countless thoughts race through my mind. Epidural or not? Boy or girl? Cloth diapers or disposables? Will I ever get an adequate explanation of the difference between a bouncer and a swing? And the most important question of all: If I had an engineering degree, would I actually be able to install a car seat without reading the manual 97 times?
I know experience is the greatest teacher and only time can answer many of these questions, but experience has already taught me something. One of the greatest gifts I can give myself is get rid of my stuff. So today also kicks off a 100-day clutter countdown in my world. Because if I can’t do 1-in, 1-out with Half Penny’s stuff, I can certainly do it with mine.
The Good
I’ve hit some major decluttering milestones already. We streamlined much of our kitchen. Cluttered countertops have always given me the heebie-jeebies, but it turns out that I developed some serious skills when it came to behind-the-scenes clutter. So we tackled our cabinets and drawers. Scaling back our grocery budget to $200 a month also forced us to take a hard look at what was and wasn’t allowed to stay in our cabinets, fridge, and freezer.
Then, I turned my attention to office space. No, not Milton and his stapler, but my command center that is attached to our kitchen (thanks, 1999 architecture). I bid adieu to 68% of our office clutter. And the coup-de-grâce was that I netted nearly $1000 and over $1300 reselling stuff from my closets in 2015 and 2016.
The Ugly
Let’s be done with it, shall we? We’ll skip the bad, and I’ll rip the Band-Aid off now. Here goes.
I still use two closets. And one is a walk-in. Okay, they’re both technically walk-ins. But only one is close to my Clueless-style dreams of yesteryear. In fact, I once had grand plans of blowing out the wall to connect both walk-in closets and using the attached guest bedroom as a room to get ready in each morning. What can I say? I watched a lot of MTV Cribs during my formative years. Plus, I told you it was going to be ugly.
And while I’ve donated and sold over 75% of my shoes, that percentage masks the fact that I still own close to 50 pairs. Truth be told, I still own too much of everything. Given the fact that I can currently wear just four pairs of pants–elastic waistbands FTW–and a few leggings at the moment, I know I don’t actually need all the things that I own. And yet, I hold onto them.
For the next 100 days, I’m going to whittle away the clutter in our house. By the time Half Penny arrives, I plan to have donated or sold at least 100 items. Not only do I want to set a more reasonable example for Half Penny when it comes to an appropriate stuff-to-room ratio, I also figure Half Penny would really like a closet one day that isn’t full of Mom’s stuff. I may know next to nothing about parenting right now, but I’m pretty sure that’s a given.
So Tell Me…Do you need help picking your jaw up the floor? Do you have any kind words or pep talks for me? Care to commiserate?
Good luck! I’m with you on the shoes. We recently got married, so we are trying to sell all of our old items that were replaced by new gifts, and sell all of our wedding decorations. I’m definitely looking forward to having my guest room back!
Selling wedding decorations was so fun! I loved meeting all the brides-to-be! Best of luck to you with your sales and decluttering, Rachel.
I hear ya, sista. Downsizing into this 250 sq ft unit has forced me to confront my pile of junk. No, I do not need 3 boxes of paper. No, I do not need to keep my pity trophies from youth softball. No, I do not need my clay pot I made at age 8. I also figured out I don’t need 8 million tupperware containers or more than one can opener. It’s so easy to hoard stuff when you have the space!
Oh my gosh, Gwen. Yes! We live in a 3 BR, 2.5 bath house. And I literally sobbed when we moved in because I thought I didn’t have enough space for my stuff. Now I know space isn’t the issue. Stuff is.
Ugh I feel your pain. I currently use 2 closets, the bigger dresser in the bedroom, and still have seasonal items stored in the basement. Lucky you’ll at least have one walk-in! That’s my dream!
Where do you sell your clothing/shoes when you do? I know a previous post mentioned ThredUp. Is that the only place you use, if not donating?
Nope. I use Poshmark more for clothes than Tradesy simply because I don’t have as many designer clothes. I find I can sell everything from Michael Kors to Target on Posh. I’ve only used ThredUP once, and now I’d actually probably be hard pressed to do it again. They now charge the $10 processing fee, so I’d probably end up in the negatives if I sold with them. The last time I used them, I got $5.40.
I also have some really good luck at a local consignment store. Plato’s/Clothes Mentor are good, too, if I’m just looking to unload.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m always curious about people’s shopping habits, especially in the PF world.
Living in less than 800 sq feet with 2.5 people and 2 cats, I have no choice but to keep it lean. I do prefer it, anyway. It stresses me out to see clutter everywhere, and when I last moved, I only had, like 10 boxes, which was pretty sweet.
With that said, your closet space is like, my dream. I hate bureaus (so clunky) and wish I had enough space to hang everything so I could look at how cute my clothes are when I wake up 🙂
Oh, yup. I definitely have a dresser, too. I haven’t shopped aside to replace things (and now for maternity clothes) in probably three years. But I just can’t bring myself to get rid of everything…until now.
I heard you can get your car seat installed by your local fire department for free. 🙂 Can’t wait to hear about little Half Penny!
Ugh, I totally feel ya. We aren’t expecting yet, but the current Future-Baby-Room is full to bursting with all of our stuff (Mr. Picky Pincher doesn’t believe in storing things in the attic). We’ll need to do quite a bit of decluttering or better organizing before the room’s inhabitant arrives!
I’m so excited to overshare about Half Penny! It’s amazing what happens with guest rooms or empty rooms, isn’t it? Having overnight guests when we first moved in might have slowed my clutter strategy some. Maybe. 😉
Can you believe there’s a wait list at our station of several weeks? That was real impetus to get ourselves YouTubing.
Lol! A bouncer is like a swing but with springs at the top of the chains/ropes it hangs by. It’s most useful for a baby that’s using their legs somewhat. You hang it low enough that the baby’s feet are flat on the floor and when they push against the floor the bouncer….errrr, ummmm…..well, it bounces up and down, lol! A swing, of course, swings back and forth with no bouncing. Do you remember watching Tigger from Winnie the Pooh bouncing on his tail? That’s a bouncer! Lol!
And shoes? When I started decluttering, I started in the closets. I too had expanded into a neighboring room’s closet on top of the master bedroom closet. I thought it would be fun to count how many pairs of footwear I owned. I stopped counting at 200 and went and huddled in a corner, hiding my face in shame!. I’m down to 62 pairs and that’s including flip-flops, slippers, hiking boots, rubber boots and yard shoes. Sigh. I had more success getting rid of clothes! BUT! The hubs and I are now sharing the walk-in master closet and ALL of our clothing and footwear is in there. We have no dressers or chest of drawers in our bedroom at all. We do have a tiny coat closet in the foyer for jackets and totes. We have a small secretary with three drawers that holds hats, caps, gloves, dog leashes, sunglasses, ect in the foyer so all “leaving the house” stuff is right there at the front door….easy to grab on the way out, easy to put up coming in! But we no longer have excess apperal shoved in every closet and nook and cranny! And I’m still decluttering a bit at a time. I have a wicker hamper in the foyer that I drop things into as I decide they need to go. When it’s full, I bag the stuff and drop it off at Goodwill, get my receipt and go home! Good luck with your current decluttering goals!
If it makes you feel any better, I once bought a pair of camp chairs to replace the pair I knew I had, but were stuffed too deeply in the closet to bother getting out. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have been willing to do that if they cost more than $10 each, but who knows? We definitely need to do some decluttering work, but we’ve been putting it off for so long. I think we need a 100-day deadline over here!
I try to part with anything I haven’t worn in a year. If I never felt the inkling to put it on, I probably don’t love it that much. I also ask how much would I pay to buy it again if I didn’t already own it? Less than $10? It can probably go too. 🙂 As for new things, I only buy it if I like it more than what I am currently wearing. Plus it’s 1 in 1 out in my closet. They are super simple rules, but they keep things from piling up. 🙂
I love Kim’s example of Tigger as bouncer. It’s pretty good!
You can do this! We embarked on a similar adventure pre-JuggerBaby and I’m really glad that we did. We’ve worked hard on keeping the clutter down since, too, and compared to other baby-having households, we’ve done a decent job.
Good luck! Yes, Half Penny will want some closet space, eventually. And kids toys all seem to be like the ones that expand in water…you didn’t realize you had so many bulky, hard to store items in your house until they are merrily going around pulling them all out at once.
I need to at least try to match you with one thing a day, and go way past 100 days. We’ll be taking some stuff down to my nephew this weekend, who is celebrating birthday #1. A bunch of Thomas the Train stuff should leave our house and go to a good home.
You have at least 4 years before half penny starts expressing desires for closet space. We store snowboarding gear, pool noodles and Shirley’s clothes in Kenny’s closet and he doesn’t seem to mind. Shirley’s closet has my and Rob’s clothes. Rob and I don’t have a closet.
We live in a small house, so we just have to deal with the closet shuffle.
The pool noodles made me smile so much. That’s fantastic, Hannah! Good to know I can declutter slowly 😉