Stop buying crap (Lifehacker): tool for decluttering

[BNgarden]

I am going to purge the house over the next year, of all crap.  This seems like a particularly useful methodology for me (still, am daunted by the prospect of listing EVERYTHING)...
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-program-your-mind-to-stop-buying-crap-you-don-t-1690268064

Has anyone done a similar exercise?  Tips from your experience?

[Syonyk]

Have a kid. :p  The reconfiguration to make space for a kid is a strong motivator to get rid of a lot of junk that's been sitting idle.  I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff in the past few months preparing.

[ender]

That's a good article.

Clearing out and removing old stuff makes you realize how much stuff you get that sits unused. It is helpful to realize that you never buy something intending for it to never be used, which means when you are intending to use something and buy it you may very well end up putting it on the shelf and never using it...

[swick]

This was a really good article, thanks for sharing!

Thanks for sharing your process too, acorn. I think having the excel spreadsheet so you can look at a glance what you have would be super handy. I use to do this years ago when I was single, a marriage and a couple of big moves later it is frustrating trying to keep track of what we have, especially now that everything has had to find new homes.

[Syonyk]

1) Unused wedding gifts that I cannot return. I feel guilty, so we still have them. Even worse, we asked for some of that stuff.

Do you have any friends getting married? :)  Free gifts are best gifts?  Or is there something else you can get rid of?  My wife & I, after getting married, went through our kitchen and gave away a lot of the stuff that we didn't need (we both had full-ish sets of kitchen stuff before we got married, and got a lot more for our wedding) - we just gave it to couples we knew who were getting married soon and may not have had as much stuff (one of them was still living with his parents to save money (on an engineer's salary!), so he didn't have much kitchen stuff at all).  If you haven't used it, don't feel guilty about giving it to someone who can.

2) Things that are useful, but that I don't technically need. For example, I only technically need 2 plates, bowls, sets of silverwear, mugs, and cups for the 2 people in my house. But of course, I do not want to wash the same dish 3 times per day and what would I do when my parents and sister visit? I end up quitting because my needs and wants are at odds.

I'd look at the cost-of-storage for those items, mentally and physically.  For us, a stack of 10 plates consumes no more space than a stack of 2 - the cabinet shelf space is taken by one, and a stack of 10 doesn't use anything but vertical space we wouldn't use otherwise.  However, we gave away a bunch of plates because we had more than would fit in one stack, so we had to make room for more, and that was interfering with other stuff.  I personally think extreme minimalism is a bit silly (especially when counting items to meet some arbitrary limit), as it just trades one problem for another.

We also have a cabinet of rarely-used paper plates/cups/etc.  If we end up with more people over than we have plates for, out come the paper plates.  Given that we seem to be on track to go through a bag of them roughly every decade, it doesn't exactly cost us much, and it's an out of the way place (my wife can't reach it without climbing on the counter, so it wouldn't be used for other stuff anyway).

[dragoncar]

Most of my "junk" is stuff I didn't even buy directly.  Usually it's some accessory that I really, truly might need once or twice in the future, and would probably be a real hassle to replace.  For example, I have an inverter to power electronics in my car.  It normally plugs into the cigarette lighter, but has a separate dongle to attach directly to the car battery for higher-wattage applications.  I've never used it, and could throw it away.  But some day I might need to run something off my car battery -- say the power goes out and I need to power a saw or whatever -- I don't know, but it's not completely crazy.  I have tons of crap like that -- straps that came with bags I usually carry by hand, but every few years use the strap, and so on and so forth.  And all this crap takes up maybe a square yard, so it's not really hurting anything to sit in the garage.  I love to declutter true junk, but I have a real problem throwing away stuff that I might use in the future.  At this point, a lot of stuff is a sunk cost -- like the second blender we have from our merged households.  We have plenty of space in the cabinets to keep the second blender, and who knows someday one will probably break.  It's not worth the effort to sell now on craiglist and then buy another used one in the future.  Am I missing something?

[MissPeach]

I saw on the minimalists website they recommended a 'packing party'. Basically to pack things up like you're going to move. I don't want to do this to my whole house but I have done it with areas like the bathroom or kitchen drawers. I put it all into a box and then whatever is left after a few weeks gets designated as unneeded junk. My one exception is for a small amount of travel items like my converter plugs and seasonal clothing that I wore in the last year. I have filled up 3 boxes in the last few weeks like this.

[Cassie]

Yes it is a good plan. At first it is hard to get rid of stuff so if you start with the low hanging fruit it gets easier as time goes on. I also like not having a house with so many nik-naks, clothes, etc. It also helped me to stop shopping. I only shop now if I need something & I go straight to the item & don't look around. I usually shop online if possible because there is less temptation. I throw away the junk & donate the rest or give it to friends if they want to. I also think it is dumb to just have a few plates, etc. YOu can be clutter free & still have adequate amounts of stuff to have company. I did pare down to 2 sets of sheets per bed since when do you need more.  I also got rid of the clothes that I rarely wore. It was sometimes painful if they were expensive & I only wore a few times but remembering this helped me to not repeat the experience. Books is another area that people usually have way too much of. We now have just 2 shelves of books & gave away 50 boxes. Good luck!

[No-stache]

I have a hard time not buying crap at Goodwill though I did manage to go this past weekend and buy NOTHING!

If I'm having a hard time getting rid of something,  I put it in my "donate" box at my house and see if I really don't use the items for a month or two. If I haven't used them in that time, off it goes.

[SaintM]

One advantage to being in the military and moving every 2-3 years is it forces you to pack and unpack your shit.  If there is something in the box that I can't find a home or need for, it goes away...trashed, sold, or donated.

[meg_shannon]

Great article. We just made a temporary move to Germany. Since we're in a furnished apartment, anything that didn't get purged or shipped is in a storage unit for a year. We've pared down a lot and everything fit into a 10'x10' unit, including furniture and my husband's extensive tool collection.

We'll probably get rid of even more when we move back. We didn't plan especially well and had to rush.

[Sibley]

In the Throw Down the Gauntlet section, there's a decluttering thread that's pretty big. Check it out sometime. Get some inspiration and encouragement, then return the favor. It's good for me :)

[PJ]

In the Throw Down the Gauntlet section, there's a decluttering thread that's pretty big. Check it out sometime. Get some inspiration and encouragement, then return the favor. It's good for me :)

link to thread mentioned above ... http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/getting-rid-of-stuff-clearing-out-clutter!/

And link to another website I enjoy:  https://unclutterer.com/

They used to have very active forums, but they made a switch to the way the forums were structured (much more annoying/harder to navigate), pissed off all the really regular posters, and refused to switch back or make any significant changes to improve functionality.  Forums are all but dead there now, and the infrequent new posts are mostly spam.  But there are some good old threads with ideas about how to de-clutter.  Here's one I'm partial to (because I started it!)

https://unclutterer.com/forums/topic/games-we-play-to-do-more-than-atad/

You can also use the search feature with the term ATAD - which means "a thing a day" to get rid of.  But you have to go back to at least 2013 to find really active busy ATAD threads, and we'd all be posting regularly about what "thing" we got rid of that day.  We'd start a new thread monthly.  There was also a FATAD (fix a thing a day) variation on and off for a while. 

Gosh.  I miss my unclutterer peeps.  Still.  :-(

[RetiredAt63]

I never actually registered, but I got so much inspiration out of that forum.  You were all so inspiring (thank you!), and I decluttered along with you. After the format change I found I rarely went back to the main site, the action was on the forum.

Sort of like here, come to think of it - the discussion here on the forum is very different than on the main blog, we are the ones who came and have stayed and participate.

And link to another website I enjoy:  https://unclutterer.com/
They used to have very active forums, but they made a switch to the way the forums were structured (much more annoying/harder to navigate), pissed off all the really regular posters, and refused to switch back or make any significant changes to improve functionality.  Forums are all but dead there now
Gosh.  I miss my unclutterer peeps.  Still.  :-(

[PJ]

I never actually registered, but I got so much inspiration out of that forum.  You were all so inspiring (thank you!), and I decluttered along with you. After the format change I found I rarely went back to the main site, the action was on the forum.

Sort of like here, come to think of it - the discussion here on the forum is very different than on the main blog, we are the ones who came and have stayed and participate.

And link to another website I enjoy:  https://unclutterer.com/
They used to have very active forums, but they made a switch to the way the forums were structured (much more annoying/harder to navigate), pissed off all the really regular posters, and refused to switch back or make any significant changes to improve functionality.  Forums are all but dead there now
Gosh.  I miss my unclutterer peeps.  Still.  :-(

That's so cool ... I know how excited we always were when a long time lurker started posting along with us.  You should have joined us, 'cause we had a lot of fun!  And there were meet-ups and stuff there too :-)