Ah, the old “we might need it, and if I get rid of I will have to buy a new one” problem coupled with a reluctant SO. I started there, too. Very similar psychological barriers to adopting MMM principles. There are a few tricks to get over this.
First, start small with the low hanging fruit where it’s not a case of you might need it, and instead is a case of clearly you just never bothered to get rid of it. For us, it was finding 7 spatulas in the kitchen drawer. We got rid of two of them - boom, progress. Not the desired end state (we now have just 2) but better off than before. That’s important- if you try to go from chaos to to your ideal zen utopia of calm in one big purge weekend,, you won’t make it. This is a year long process. At least.
By starting small you’ll realize (and so will your SO) that your reluctance was irrational. There wasn’t a great spatula shortage of 2018 resulting in a new batch of spatula buying. It was an irrational fear created by your caveman brain that is wired to collect things even to its own detriment (that detriment being the stress and waste caused by a cluttered area). It’s like my fear that if I don’t have a new car my neighbours will think less of me. Totally irrational bullshit.
When starting small, don’t get discouraged if you don’t see progress right away. A lot of people will give up “better” because they can’t get to “perfect”. Better, no matter by how much, is still better. The key is to keep going. Small wins will accumulate.
If you are going to start small, then start small with your own stuff. This takes the SO reluctance completely out of the equation. My spouse was crazy against this, now she’s fully on board. Starting this way was key after I figured out that the arguments were never going to work. (Hint: when I proudly announced “honey, from now on our family are minimalists, let’s get rid of 70% of our stuff! It wasn’t the best way to start my project. I wish I could describe the look on her face.)
One trick we used a lot of is what was said above - put the questionable items into a box and put it somewhere else for a few months. While my wife would not agree to get rid of something, she would agree to do this. Then, in six to nine months, I’d ask her what was in the box and if she couldn’t remember then obviously it wasn’t needed and she’d be good with getting rid of it. Maybe a half dozen times we rescued something from the box and reintroduced it into our house. That’s totally allowed. But I can not describe to you how much easier it is psychologically to get rid of an item when it’s in a box in the garage conpared to getting rid of something from your living room. For us we had pretty much a two stage proceess for the things we were “clinging” to a bit. From the living area of the house to the garage. And then from the garage to the donation centre (my one regret is that I didn’t sell as much stuff as I could have - I just wanted it gone so gave it away. I could have made a good chunk of change selling it. Ah well. Lesson learned)
Another major barrier we hit was the thinking that getting rid of something that was “still good”, even if we never used it, was a waste of money. It took a while to realize that getting rid of an unused item is not a waste of money - buying it was. And keeping an unused item can never correct that original mistake and does not recoup the cost, and there IS a cost to keeping things - your space is valuable and so is your time and piece of mind. Clutter robs you of that, it is constantly stealing from you. The mistake of buying the thing was already made, you can’t undo it, so cut your losses and get rid of it. Understanding this was key for me in eliminating my desire for more purchases. Now I think long and hard about what deserves a place in my home and the result is FAR less buying.
Now, will there be times that you’ll go to get something that you got rid of and you’ll be pissed off? Yes, that will happen. But not nearly as often as you’d think. And when it does happen, you’ll find that 99% of the time you can easily find a work around in order to make due without the thing or you can borrow one from a friend easily enough. We actually had the “should we keep the crib” argument and my wife wanted to in case company came who had a baby. We got rid of the crib at my insistance. Company came and we needed the damn thing. It took half an hour to find one we could borrow. Problem solved. Added bonus here - it had never occurred to me that if needed something I shouldn’t just go out and buy it. After all, if I needed it once I might need it again, so I better own one. Now, making due without or borrowing are my go-to moves instead of buying. This was a fundamental shift in thinking for me. Out of the thousands of items I’ve gotten rid of, there is only ONE that I had to repurchase (a calculator that we had that my daughter could have used for school). That’s it. Even if we did have to repurchase a few items, the money I saved by fundamentally changing my consumerist habits FAR exceeded it. I swear that the advertisers sell us a life where everything we could ever need is at our fingertips. What a bunch of bullshit.
Finally,a 70% reduction may not be right for you and your family. And that’s totally okay. Everyone is different and you need to find what works for you - but what is clear is that what you got going on right now isn’t working for you. You will never in a million years find a cleaning and organizing solution to a clutter problem. That’s like trying to borrow your way out of spending problem. Solve the real issue, not the symptom of the issue.
There is a ton of great information on the web on minimalism and escaping clutter. There are a ton of different ways to approach the issue, and you can find one that works for your family.
Now, today’s project was to go through the accumulating artwork, so time to get at it.
Good luck!