There’s a scene in the movie Clueless where Alicia Silverstone’s character is accused of being aimless. She insists that she has direction, and is promptly chided, “Towards the mall!” That, friends, was me in a nutshell for years. Decades really. I didn’t have any concrete financial ambitions or direction. And I shopped like it was … [Read more…]
Productive decluttering. Declutter productively. Less waste. Waste less. I had all sorts of flowery ideals and aspirations written out in a notebook. My plan was to simply transfer it into a blog post, slap a title on it, and call it my goals for 2020. The problem is that none of those visions were concrete … [Read more…]
Babies don’t have to be expensive. They don’t require a lot of stuff. Except…they definitely are and they kind of do. There are myriad ways to cut costs when it comes to child rearing. But there’s no denying the breathtaking burden of childcare and college tuition. It’s easier to combat clutter that college costs, but … [Read more…]
I suppose I should come right out and say it. This decluttering update is no where near as saucy as last month. That’s right: I’ve decluttered a bunch, but I haven’t sold any undies or tossed any hemorrhoid cream this month. What I have noticed though, besides the fact that I have next to no … [Read more…]
My decluttering journey has ebbed and flowed all year. In fact, one month I didn’t part with a single thing. While I still maintain that no journey is a straight line and decluttering has to be done with starts and stops, I can now say something else. Sometimes, decluttering is a flurry. All last month, … [Read more…]
“I don’t buy my kid toys.” I remember hearing that sentence like it was yesterday. But it wasn’t. It was 12 years ago, and it was at my parents’ house. My cousins were visiting for the holidays with their 1-year-old baby, and that comment was part of their very grateful acceptance of the gift we … [Read more…]
It’s true. I decluttered exactly zero things in May. None. Zilch. Zero. Nada. After months of detailed recaps outlining everything I decluttered, I simply walked away from it all. And like most things in life, the reasons are complicated. In May, the school year was winding down. Except it wasn’t. Instead of the usual decrescendo … [Read more…]
A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. A minimalist by any other name would still have less stuff. Right? I try to not get caught up in labels on this blog. In fact, it’s probably one of the many fundamental flaws in my overall blogging strategy. It flies in the face … [Read more…]
In the name of science this blog, I attempted a thing: I recycled my shoes. More specifically, I tried recycling my shoes at DSW. I’ve learned a lot of lessons decluttering. One of the most important lessons is that sometimes things are just garbage. But sometimes things aren’t. That’s how I felt about these shoes. … [Read more…]
I didn’t start the year with a concrete number for how many items I wanted to declutter. I was invited to do a few different challenges. The most dramatic one promised to part ways with 1,000 items. I didn’t accept. Because honestly? It seemed too easy. For a house that generally abides by the clean … [Read more…]