Living Minimally and Frugally: Part 2

Here is a list of the tips and notes that I have gathered while learning and starting this crazy thing called living with less:

Notes for Decluttering Your Home:

Remove 1/3 of your possessions.

When you are selling a home, I am told that typically Real Estate agents ask you to get rid of a third of your possession to make the house presentable. This allows a room to feel light and it feels much less stressful for everyday living. This makes sense, logically. There is no constant clean up and reorganizing. If you find yourself using that word again and again for an area that you have already organized, there is a great chance that you just have too much stuff.

Find a home for everything. Draw boundaries and keep like with like.

Husband and I are in a 2 bedroom apartment. This means that the second bedroom is the Office/Craft/ Guest Room. This really means that it has the most buildup of stuff. I learned that having a room with very specific title is helpful in larger homes. If it is a game room, only game room stuff should be in there. An Office, keep it just office. You get the idea. Unfortunately, that isn’t an option in our currently living situation.  So I have embarked on a great declutteration. On my desk, can only live the items needed to work my computer, in the left closet, clear and concisely labeled totes holding minimal and well organized crafting/sewing/crocheting/scrapbooking supplies. Don’t buy new stuff for any of those activities until they previously planned activity is completed.  No piles on the futon/guest bed. Simple, right? Allow the space to limit what you have. This drawer is for X,Y,Z. If it doesn’t fit, you don’t need it. Don’t go buy more bookshelves, don’t go get a bigger box to shove in the nonexistent closet space. Make a choice to keep less.

No piles

This is a hard one, but, trust me, it makes life so simple if you get out of the habit of oiling. It is something terribly difficult for me to let go of, but when I am not piling that means things are getting to their designated Home and reduces buildup.

Declutter counter tops, cupboards, and drawers.

Don’t make yourself have to dig through a box or drawer to find that it wasn’t there. You don’t need 12 notepads and 56 pens. Get rid of excess. Donate, take it to work, or just use it up and don’t buy any more of X,Y,Z. If the Counter top are tidy, they will be easier to clean and much less daunting to keep up with. Much like an article of clothing: If you haven’t use it in a year, get rid of it.

Be intentional with your decorations.

Be thoughtful with what is up on your walls and on your surfaces. If it has meaning, keep it. If it is a gift and you don’t really like it, you DON’T have to keep it.  Be selective with what your choose to put on display and represent you.

Minimize Furniture

If you don’t use that chair regularly, get rid of it and make space for some breathing room. If you have a cabinet full of China and Stemware you never use, reconsider having it in the first place.

Basic Notes on How to Declutter Typically Cluttered Areas:

Medicine cabinet

Clean out an expired or outdated medicine, makeup, first aid ointments, toothpaste, etc. Decide to reduce what it kept in there. For example: If you have 3 partially used toothpastes, choose one to use up first put the others in a designated back up area. Don’t forget to check there before you go out and buy another! Hair supplies are great, but you don’t need product to last you for the next 50 years as back up. Clear it out. 

Under the Sink

Cleaning products are the secret villain. Does the product work and you use it? Great! Keep it! Used it twice and it doesn’t quite do it? Get rid of it. Oh and all those Mini Toiletries? Keep one easy to refill set for when you have guests come to stay and through a set into your gym bag if you shower at the gym. Other wise: Dump like with the like into a container and use it up. Get rid of all the extras. 

Linen closet

People tend to have too many towel, quilts, blankets, and sheets. Donate them to Goodwill, Salvation army, or the local pet shelter. You don’t need that many. Trust me.

Bedroom closet/dresser

This one is pretty straightforward. Get rid of clothes that you don’t wear or that don’t fit anymore. Seriously, if you have been “working on getting that skinny again” for that past year and you haven’t worn it, then get rid of it. If the “I haven’t worn it in a year and it isn’t my wedding dress” technique doesn’t work on you, try this trick: Turn all your hangers “the wrong way” and in a month’s time, see what you haven’t turned back around. I did this at the beginning of 2015 and I have been able to be honest with myself about what I will wear and won’t. Granted, my winter and summer wardrobe is very similar as I live in SoCal so I am able to do this in the middle of January. Do this over the course of a season if you live some place with 4 of them. It will do wonders!

Clean out nightstand

OMGLOB, I am the worst about my nightstand. It is a catch all. Things I clean out from my purse, geegews from conventions, keepsakes, that don’t have a home yet. They all make it into the Black Hole that is my night stand. I keep a night stand with a drawer, but the only things allowed in said drawer is the book I am currently reading, a journal and a pencil, and my Sudoku book.

Office closet

Like I said before, you don’t all the pens you accidently stole from Hotels and Banks. Get rid of them. Take them to work, pop them in your purse and live and extra one for your server next time you go out to eat. Note pads, put them where they will be used and focus on using up one first (like the toothpaste) if you are an avid user of them. You catch my drift.

Craft Box

I have made some cool stuff in my life, but now, 5 years later, I don’t have any distinct plans for the rest of the string of beads. Donate it unless you know (and have plans to accomplish) what you want to do with it.

Kitchen cabinets

You don’t need all those drinking cups, coffee mugs, Martini, Highball, Wine glasses, and souvenir sippers. Asses what you use regularly and get rid of what you don’t. I give you permission.

Kitchen drawers

TUPPERWARE! Keep only full pairs and sizes you find you use. They take up space and they are an easy thing to horde. Gidgets and gadgets, if you only use them once day a year, are they really worth having around the other 364 days of it? Weigh your options. I use all my kitchen gadgets regularly, so there are very few I would go without, but we also don’t have a buildup of plates and glasses to contend with.

Bookshelves

Will you really reread it? Be like Admiral Adama in Battlestar Galatica: “It’s a gift. Never lend books.” Besides, isn’t there a local Library that you can utilize?

Email / Computer files

This is an easy thing not to think of. For Email, after I read it, I delete it if I don’t need any info with in it. Unsubscribe to the shop emails. If you don’t need it, don’t shop for it via their advertisements. Clean up your music and photo files into clear folders to mak

e your life easier when you want to share it. Don’t keep doubles and be diligent. Do you still really need papers you wrote back in High School Class of ’02? No, you don’t. Clear up the Hard drive and your system will run smoother.

Vases

How many do you really need? One big, one small, done.

Candles

Burn them, use them, don’t just save them for special occasions. They are easy things to horde.

Now that you have rid yourself of the extra……

After you manage to get rid of things though, you have to remember not to build it all back up again. Don’t go needlessly, mindlessly shopping. Make a list and stick to it. Don’t buy the cute dress because it is on sale! Only buy it if you need to replace your dress “Cute summer Dress that can go from Day to Evening”. You get me? This will help your finances which will help with your stress level as well!  

If it ain’t broke, don’t buy a replacement. In turn, if it does break, consider it you really need a replacement. For example, our Microwave seemingly died for 3 days and we decided that we really didn’t need to replace it (we figured out that it was just the outlet later, long story). Heating things up on the stove or in the oven was just as easy, and we don’t really live and “hustle bustle quick eat” life style. Though it is working again, it may not make the cut to move back to St Louis with us when the time comes.

Remember, they less you have, the less you have to CLEAN! It is so freeing. Getting rid of the extra will give you extra time in the future.

No, this will not be an overnight endeavor, but I have my Husband on board and we are a united front.This will take months obtain and a lifetime to prefect, but there is no better time than now to start. I am tackling it room by room, systematically. I Am finishing  the living room today and will be starting the kitchen this weekend. Then the office starting with the closets and then the desk space. I have been using the “backwards hanger” technique since January 4^th so by Valentine’s day, I should have a cleaned out closet. I am hoping to have gotten through all the things by the end of February so I can do it all again for packing up our home over the course of March.