Lately I’ve been trying to rid myself of unwanted or
unneeded items in my life. This has
proven to be a bigger task than I once thought.
First, there’s the obvious, like clothes and kitchen items but when I
start to dig deeper, I find little things everywhere….too many paperclips, notebooks,
and ink pens. Too many little trinkets, earrings I have no use for, accessories
I’ve been holding onto and haven’t worn, you name it. I’m
also a list maker and a paper stacker. I
will write something on a sticky note and stick it on my desk to get back to
later for whatever reason. I also do
this with things I get in the mail, or things I print, so it’s a constant
battle. Luckily, I don’t do this with
bills. I long to have a desk as clean as the one in this photo. I also keep receipts, which I
have to remember to go through every couple of months. I think right now, I have them in at least 3
places, not including my most recent purchases which are still in my checkbook.
Before I started the process of receipt
purging, I had receipts that dated back a few years. Some of them, I could barely read, others
were blank because the ink had completely faded away. I thought I had been on top of my tax papers
until I found tax papers dating back to 1999. I did spend a few hours one day tackling the
tax papers so I don’t have anything that old anymore.
Then there are the things that I have too many of and can’t bear
to part with, like coffee mugs and scarves.
I have gotten better with my mugs and managed to get rid of 6 not long
ago, and they haven’t been replaced. The
scarves, hmmm, well, I got rid of 2 or 3 and I purchased 2 or 3, so yeah, kind
of pointless, unless you follow the one-in, one-out rule, which I don’t. It just happened that way. A part of me wants to get rid of 90% of what I
own and only buy what I feel is completely necessary but honestly, I think 30
scarves is totally necessary…seriously.
Years ago, I used to collect refrigerator magnets. At one point, the front of my refrigerator
was completely covered with them.
Whenever I would get a new one, I would squeeze it in and the weirdest
thing would happen: My girls would say “You
got a new magnet.” I could never figure
out how they could even tell. I guess
they memorized the way it looked. They
were always able to pick out the new one.
It’s like I have spent my entire adult life accumulating
things, only to realize that I don’t need to have all of these things and they
are adding to the stress in my life, as well as costing me money. I moved over a year ago and a lot of my
things have been in a storage unit the entire time. I got rid of a some things but the fact that
I even have a storage unit tells me that I still have too much stuff. Luckily, it’s not completely full because I
have been going through the stuff, getting rid of items but clearly, there’s
more work to be done. Granted, some of the boxes belong to my
daughters, one of which moved to another state on a last minute decision but
that was a year ago. I have been going through her things and sending some of her items to her, while purging things I know she doesn't need. The other is a
freshman in college so most of her things are spread between her room and her
dorm but she has taken the liberty to get rid of a lot of things as well in an attempt
to simplify her belongings. She only has 1 or 2 boxes in storage. My original goal was to have the storage unit for less than a year. Sadly, that didn't happen. Now at the very least, I'd like to downsize to a smaller unit within the coming months, only because I have some household items that I want to keep and don't have the place for them right now but the other items will be gone through more thoroughly.
People tell me that it’s a long, never-ending so I try not
to be discouraged but I have to be honest, this is an overwhelming task and I’m
tired already. I’m not giving up though.
I know my mindset is changing because I
don’t just buy things now. I actually
think about if it’s something I need or if I already own something that I can
reuse. I tend to shop mainly for
groceries now. That’s my next challenge: Changing the way I grocery shop. I need to plan my meals so I don’t end up in
the store every few days, which has been the case of late. Years ago, I shopped once every 2 weeks. Then it changed to once a week, and now I end
up going whenever, or several times a week. I know that’s hard on my budget too, so I definitely
will be working on that.
Okay, clearly I’m on to another topic so I should end this
post.
~Pamela Denise~
No comments:
Post a Comment