I’ve been on a mission to remove over 75% of my possessions.
A few weeks ago, I shared about our experience with moving to a mansion and all the reasons why it was not worth it.
That experience left us with more possessions and belongings than I have ever had in my life. We’re talking enough furniture to furnish three normal size houses.
Once we moved back into the four-bedroom home that we lived in prior to the mansion, we were left with a storage unit chock-full of furniture we were not going to use.
This has left me with a monumental task of minimizing an extreme amount of belongings. Over 75% of the things we owned, we no longer needed (probably closer to 85% but I’m being conservative).
I haven’t gotten rid of absolutely everything yet (it takes time to sell furniture), but I sure have gotten rid of all of the excess in our living space, with just a few things remaining in the storage unit that I’m trying to sell.
As I have culled our possessions, I have felt a weight lift with every single item that gets donated, trashed, or sold. Every single thing that leaves my ownership leaves me feeling freer and lighter.
Finding Freedom In Removing The Excess
The main reason why I did not like living in the mansion was because of how weighed down I felt by all of our stuff. Due to the sheer amount of things we had to our name, we lost the ability to pick up and move easily – something I’m seeing now as we had to go through another move back to our old house. It takes a long time to get rid of so many things.
I have read several books and blogs about minimalism, including TheMinimalists.com, BecomingMinimalist.com, The Joy Of Less, and several others. I’ve been consuming all of the content in the last couple of months, and I’ve been working hard to put it all into action.
As we move back into our regular size house after the mansion experience, I’ve been working through each room, cabinet, and drawer in our home: moving things into a trash, donate, or sell pile.
Everything that we’re not keeping immediately goes into the garage so I can get it out of our living space. From the garage, items get moved out in batches. I’ve been making a trip to Goodwill once a week to drop off all items in the Donate pile, and my husband has been managing selling the items of value on Facebook marketplace. Trash items go straight into the trash can. 🙂
We’ve been back in our house for about one month now. We traveled for a month right after moving out of the mansion so we weren’t home during the month of December.
Even though we were away, knowing about the sheer amount of excessive belongings I had to deal with weighed me down mentally. I was anxious to get home and start minimizing. All of our stuff was out of sight, but not out of mind.
The Decluttering Journey
It’s now been about four weeks of being home, and I have decluttered and gotten rid of every single unnecessary possession in the kitchen, living room, home office, playroom, my room, and my daughters’ rooms (they’re too young to play an active role in minimizing right now). And I have never felt better.
There’s not a single drawer or cabinet, let alone room, that has anything extra in it. Except for my husband’s side of the closet – don’t worry, I’m not throwing his stuff out without his consent. 🙂
I still have some work to do in our garage, mainly because it’s the holding zone for my Donate and Sell piles, but we’ll be done with that soon.
Because the furniture we bought for the mansion was so expensive, I am trying to recoup some of our money from it by selling it rather than donating it. Each week I lower the prices on items that don’t sell so that we can hopefully move them along quickly.
Now that I have experienced firsthand the joy of living with less stuff, I will never go back to being a maximalist.
My husband and I love to travel, and because we live in a beach town, we would rent our primary home out if we were ever traveling for an extended period of time. Due to our recent minimization, it would be very quick and easy to de-personalize our home to make it ready for renters.
Benefits Of Becoming Minimalist
The reason that I am becoming minimalist is to experience more freedom and joy from the things in life that aren’t things at all.
I want to experience more peace and calm in my home, and that has been happening already. Every single night when I walk into my bedroom, I think to myself how peaceful and zen it is.
It brings me so much joy to be able to relax without a single item cluttering the space.
Another benefit I’ve seen already just within the last few weeks of culling our possessions has been that it takes way less time to clean up our house at the end of each day.
I shared previously in our evening routine checklist about how we tidy up the house at the end of every day, and this is a lot easier to do when you don’t have as many items to pick up!
It’s so much easier to keep a tidy house in general when you use and own less stuff.
Another unexpected joy that I have found in my decluttering journey has been Buy Nothing groups on Facebook.
These are groups based in your local city where you can literally give where you live. I donate most of my things through my local Buy Nothing group and only take to Goodwill what doesn’t get claimed from there.
A benefit I’ve seen in my kids is that they seem to be having a longer attention span with each toy they play with, because there are fewer toys vying for their attention at any given moment.
With my morning routine, I find it much quicker to get dressed and ready for the day because I have fewer options to choose from (and every item in my closet is something that I love).
I have even minimized my beauty routine and gotten rid of a bunch of extra beauty products that were cluttering my cabinets. In lieu of the anti-wrinkle and anti-aging products and creams, I’ve decided to focus on aging well through natural means such as exercise, proper hydration, a nourishing diet, and getting enough sleep.
Final Thoughts
There are so many benefits to owning less stuff.
Less time tidying up means more time for your hobbies.
Fewer items in your living space means more serenity.
Fewer items to spend money on repair and maintenance means more money to use for travel and experiences.
A more open and airy office means greater opportunity for concentration and focus.
Finally, when you sell or donate items that you no longer need or use, you allow them to get a second lease on life from someone who actually does need them.
Give it a try. Pare down your possessions, and see how much freer you feel because of it.