After doing my big purge last week, I stumbled across this podcast where the guest was a professional cleaner who is the clean-out pro from the Hoarders TV show. I’ve never watched the show, but found his advice on hoarders and on downsizing for non-hoarders to be solid. He had some interesting insights on the value of stuff, why to minimize and practical steps for how to pare down excess possessions. When he talked about not hanging on to every drawing his children made, how he pared down photos and the small amount of keepsakes his family collects, it hit a chord with me.
That takeaways that stuck in my head include:
- “This item served me well at that time in my life, but it no longer does today.”
- “Occasionally I get rid of something and then find I need it again down the road. That’s OK. When that happens, I’ll buy a new one. That’s better than hanging on to stuff ‘just in case’ I might someday need it.”
- “If a phase of your life has passed, there’s no reason to fill your home with items you’ll never use again – clothes that are too small, skis you haven’t used in 10 years, china, furniture…none of it is worth nearly what you paid for it or even close to what you think it’s worth.“
He talked about selling your excess stuff and said the average total estate sale for a household in the US generated less than $8K – for everything! His advice was to list your items for sale on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist and if you don’t get any offers within a day, lower your price and then if it doesn’t sell, donate it to charity. He spoke in depth about the sunk cost fallacy and the true cost of time wasted trying to sell your crap. I get that.
And so, I sold the nicest drum set I ever owned but haven’t played in two years. And then today, I went into my closet, pulled out the two dress shirts I bought in 2022 that I’ve been hanging onto “just in case” I have a date or funeral to attend and dropped them off at the thrift store.
I bought those shirts for dating. I wore one…once. It was kind of scratchy and felt weird wearing a button down, collared shirt.
I haven’t been to a funeral in more than 2 decades. There’s a good chance I’ll never go to another one again.
I also found a box of incandescent light bulbs I had stored in a cabinet. They’ve been there for 5 years. When I moved into this house, I replaced all the incandescent bulbs with LEDs but kept the old bulbs “just in case” I was selling my house. What? Why? Because I wanted to keep a handful of LED bulbs for myself? More importantly, I have no plans to sell my house. Those bulbs went to the thrift store too.
When it warms up and my garage is not like a meat locker, I’ll go through all of my tools and hardware too see what I once bought and have never used. I’ll undoubtedly find some more items to donate or trash. When I’m finished, I’ll also have a clearer picture of exactly what I own and why I own it.
Off the top of my head, I can think of some camping supplies, emergency gear, electrical parts and other items I had with me on the road that I haven’t touched since my road trip in 2019. I will keep some of it if I can use it, but clearly I don’t need to be equipped for off-road, off grid living anymore.
It kind of warms my heart to think that my stuff can be put to good use by someone else now while it is still in excellent condition, instead of rotting away in a storage bin in my garage until I someday throw it out.
Minimalism, living light and simplicity obviously appeal to me. Even if they don’t to you, I encourager you to listen to the podcast I linked at the beginning of this post. You might find something that helps you too.
Postscript 1/28/24
With every iteration of this process it gets easier to get rid of more things I have been hanging onto. At this point, I have done 5 iterations.
When I came across some of the items I kept from earlier iterations , I immediately realized “I’ll never use this. – it’s time for it to go.”
