The Great Purge: Becoming a Minimalist in 2014

I am not a hoarder.  Neither am I a minimalist.  If you had to put me on a scale where hoarder was at 10 and minimalist was at 1, I’d probably be a 7.  Not quite a hoarder, but no where near the minimalist category.  I’ve thought a lot about how the STUFF we’ve accumulated in our house has begun to consume us.  So I’ve decided that my goal for 2014 is to swing to the other end of the scale by having a huge purge!

Why?  Well, besides the fact that I’m feeling overwhelmed with STUFF, I just want to know what it’s like to live life on the opposite end.  I read Little House on the Prairie to H this year and was amazed with Ma.  Now, I know that she’s portrayed in the book by her adoring daughter through rose colored glasses, but I think we do at least partially see the way she lived her life as a pioneer woman.  Her possessions were few and she held them dear.  She had one (ONE!) thing that would fit in the knick-knack category.  Laura and Mary lived a happy life, and yet they had very few possessions.  A doll, their own mug, a dress or two.  The pioneers were the definition of minimalists.  They could load everything they owned in their wagon and move it across the country.  That’s really amazing to me.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to move right now.  Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.  Stuff we like, but stuff that really isn’t important.

Well, we are hoping to move sometime in the next couple years, so I figure this year is the perfect time to change the way we live.  I want this change for me, for my husband, but most of all, for my children.  I don’t want them to grow up feeling like they need all this stuff.  No, I’m not going to take away all their toys, but we are going to greatly reduce.

So how will we do it?  

We’ll be asking for “experiences” as gifts rather than toys for birthdays and Christmas.

I will be forcing myself to limit my purchases for the girls and for myself.

And most importantly, we WILL be purging!

About a year ago, I took all kinds of before/after pictures as I cleaned my house.  I posted them on Facebook and it really helped me a lot!  I still have all those pictures and one easy thing I’m going to do is look through them, find any of those things I haven’t used much (or at all!) in the past year, and get rid of them.  I KNOW there are things that haven’t been used in a year or more and there is NO reason to keep them.  For example…

Isn’t this a great before and after shot?  I love it!  Guess how many of the things in that drawer I’ve used this year.  Well, there are two Arbonne lotions that I’ve used (one bottle is now empty) and one of the pink bags full of nail polish.  The rest?  Nope.  Not once.  So guess what?  It’s headed to the donate box.  Doesn’t matter that I *think* I might use it this year.  That’s just silly.  I know if I haven’t used it in a year, I won’t be using it this year either.

So I’d like to invite all of you to join me!  I’ll be blogging along the way.  So far, I’ve found one resource I’m planning to use.  It is the FREE Printable 2014 Declutter Calendar from Home Storage Solutions 101.  I’m really excited about this one because I need the small, simple tasks.

I’m also planning on focusing on giving this year.  I’m not wanting to SAVE a bunch of stuff up for a garage sale.  The stuff that gets purged will either be listed directly on craigslist (if it’s a high dollar item that we really need the money for) or taken to the local thrift store within a week.  The point is to get it out of the house!  I know myself well enough to know that if it sticks around for too long, I’ll end up changing my mind about it.

I’ve put together a list of solid goals that I’ve set for myself this year.  I’d love to share them with you and I’d love for you to ask me throughout the year how they’re coming!

• Purge knick-knacks down to ONE knick-knack per room
• Go through girls’ toys and purge anything that doesn’t encourage imaginative or creative play.  Box up the rest and store in the top of the closet.  Only get out one or two things at a time.
• Purge clothing!  Have 14 outfits (or less!) per child per season and 8 (or less!) per adult per season.
• Go through kitchen utensils, appliances, dishes, and everything else in the house and purge anything that wasn’t used in the last year.  (Minus baby items…obviously the baby bath wasn’t used last year, but will be used this year!)

My goal is to make selling our house and moving as simple as possible when that time comes and I know the best thing to do is simply get rid of the excess.  And I want FREEDOM from the mess!  

So who wants to join me??  

  

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