Clutter clutter everywhere…

Desk drawer - selective focus
Originally uploaded by kcdsTM

I had stopped seeing a lot of the clutter around my house, mostly because although I had lots of it, I have enough closet, drawer, and cabinet space that I could keep the clutter and keep the place neat looking. Finally though, I’d had enough. It wasn’t anything major that happened, it was just a growing realization that I have way too much stuff. So I decided to tackle it all. I’m certainly not done yet, but I’ve made a big dent.

I’ve freecycled a bunch of things, sold a few items on ebay, and set aside several large bags of stuff to donate to charity. I even found a few items that were still in the packaging that I returned to Home Depot to make over $20 in store credit! I’d always been in the habit of buying stuff I probably didn’t even need, because I knew I could return it if I didn’t use it. Except I never get around to returning a lot of it. I brought three items back, still in packaging, and now I have some “free money” to use on something I’ll actually need in the future.

Deciding what to do with things isn’t really the challenge though. The tough part is deciding what to get rid of, or where to start. Decluttering a whole house is a big project to take on, especially when that house is filled with the combined clutter from two previously single adult lives.

I did a bunch of poking around online to see how other people were handling their clutter. I found a few good ideas that, combined with a healthy dose of common sense, allowed me to really clear out the unnecessary stuff that’s been cramping my style.

1. Start small – but start: I began my project by picking a single drawer in my kitchen. It wasn’t even my junk drawer, but it was a drawer that I almost never opened. So I opened it, and I took everything out. This became one of the key factors that really helped me to weed out what I didn’t want. Looking into a drawer or cabinet, it was easy for me to say, yeah, I use all that stuff. But when I had to handle each individual item, I realized there probably wasn’t too much point in saving a dumpling maker that I’ve had for six years and never used once, or a piece of plastic with holes in it to measure out spaghetti portions – also never used. I made a box of all such items and freecycled them. Generally, I tried to use that same rule they tell us to use when cleaning out our closets: “Have I worn this in the past year?” If I haven’t used any item in the past year, I set it in a pile that I go through after I’ve put all the “keep” stuff away, and then I seriously consider whether I can live without it. I usually find I can. The best part is that now I can actually see what is left in the drawers and cabinets!
2. Pack it up – or pretend you’re going to: I read this online somewhere (and apologize for not being able to find the link, but I’m not taking credit for this as an original idea). The idea is that if you were moving across the ocean, you’d have to be very selective with the items you’d be able to bring with you, both for reasons of space and cost. So go through the house, room by room, and decide what you would bring with you if you were actually moving out of the country. Obviously, furniture is kind of exempt, but for me, this was a good way to gain some perspective on which of my possessions I really value (and clear out those that I don’t).
3. Close your eyes and memorize: Again, I found this somewhere and have since lost the link, but it’s a great idea even if it’s not mine: Look around a room in your house for a minute or two. Close your eyes, and try to remember every single item in the room. This can be scaled down to the drawer, cabinet, or closet level as well. This was a good exercise for me, because like the packing exercise, it made me spend some time thinking about the items that I forgot. Why did I forget them? In most cases, it was because they weren’t items that I particularly valued or used frequently. That makes them a good candidate for finding a new home.

In addition to no longer being surrounded by stuff I no longer used, or never used in the first place, all of these things were helpful because they reminded me of things that I did have already and could be using. There was a ton of stuff that I’d just forgotten about. Having a better idea of what I do have already will certainly help me to buy less going forward, leading to my two new favorite things, saving money and buying less / reducing my consumption.

What was really cool about this for me was some of the unexpected areas I was able to clean out. My food cupboards were a big one. I try not to buy stuff that I won’t use, but when I took each and every item out, I was amazed at some of the stuff I found that I know I won’t use. I know there are plenty of food pantries that will appreciate the bag of groceries I cleared out though.

The other thing that amazed me was that we had only moved a year ago. It was a cross country move, so we had done (I thought) a fair amount of cleaning out at the time. What I realize now is that having a packing service handle boxing everything up excused me from really having to evaluate what I needed or wanted to keep. Next time we move, I’ll make myself pack each individual item. I have a feeling I’ll end up deciding there’s a lot that I don’t actually need to hold onto, even after my recent round of de-cluttering.

Please DO NOT print this page for your records.

College Math Papers
Originally uploaded by sweetpea.loty30

Maybe nobody actually does this anyway, but it really irritates me how everytime you order something or register with a site online, there is some sort of order confirmation number that comes up on a screen, almost always with a note asking you to "please print this page for your records." I know this is a rather small thing in the big picture, but I do believe that small things add up.

I understand that if you've ordered something, you may need to have a way to refer to yourself at a later time. Most companies you do business with (perhaps unfortunately, but that's the way it is) won't know who you are if you call up and say, "Hi, my name's Melissa and I ordered something last week." I get that. But why on earth do I need to keep a full page written record of the information the company will use to find me if my order gets lost in the mail?

My simple solution to 1. save money (by saving paper, toner, and electricity from not running the printer), 2. be more green (for same reasons just mentioned) and 3. being more organized (by not having another piece of paper to file and later remember to throw out) is that I have one word document on my computer called "confirmations". When somebody asks me to print something for my records, I instead hit 'control a' to highlight the text on the page, 'control c' to copy the text in the page, then I go into my word document and hit 'control v' to paste the text into the page.

I am going to make a point to try to contact each business that I interact with if I see the "print this page" message and request them to replace it with a "make a note of this confirmation number" message.

Certainly confirmation numbers aren't the only thing that get wastefully printed. Thanks to one cool brother I now have a GPS for my car so I don't need to print directions anymore. I will admit, however, to printing out directions on more than one occasion, when in retrospect, it really wouldn't have been much more difficult to just write them down (on a much smaller piece of scrap paper) after looking them up. One additional thing I've done to make myself think more carefully about the things that I print is to disconnect the cord that connects the printer to the computer. That way, I have to think about it a little more than just to the point where I hit the "print" button. Kudos to my bank too (whatever their motivation) for now asking you whether you want a printed receipt when you make transactions at the ATM.

This is not to say I never print anything. I do (like tax returns...) but I am trying to make it a conscious choice rather than something I do automatically because a website tells me to. That, really, is the underlying goal of this whole process for me: to start being more conscious of the choices I make.

where to begin...

I don't know exactly what has brought me to this point, but I'm glad I'm here. I think it's a combination of some recent traveling, watching people around me bring beautiful promising little people into the world, having a lot of time on my hands to think, and just generally feeling sick and tired of knowing that I'm not doing what I know is best a lot of the time. I'll confess...I'm cheap. So a lot (most) of the time, I end up not buying organic. Food is expensive even when you buy the stuff sprayed all over with pesticides. I have a huge stock of cleaning supplies filled with nasty chemicals - because they cost less. I hope my sister doesn't pass out when she reads this, but I don't think I own a single pair of organic cotton underwear. Too expensive.

The interesting paradox here, however, is that I definitely let myself be lured in by the marketing gurus out there. For the record, I'm not a huge impulse buyer of flat screen tvs or new furniture, but I often come home with lots of little trinkets that I DO NOT NEED. I am sick of seeing and cleaning all this stuff around me, I am sick of thinking about the environmental impact of getting this stuff into my house, and then again when I throw it away because it's cheap crap and it broke, or because it's not useful and I don't know why I bought it in the first place, I am sick of worrying about money because I'm spending too much of it on things I do not need.

I have often felt that it's too expensive to really be environmentally friendly. What I have finally realized is that this just isn't true for the most part. What is sadly happening in our country is that the people in charge of selling us stuff have realized that a lot of people out there want to be more environmentally friendly. A lot of these people have a fair amount of disposable income. So the people in charge of selling us stuff have found a way to capitalize on our desire to buy stuff AND our desire to do the good/green thing at the same time! I don't think I really need to spend more money to clean my house in a green manner...in fact, I think I can do it for less. So this is one of the areas where I am starting this journey. The organic cotton undies still seem expensive to me though. But I'll think about it.

My new life mission then (which sounds more serious and weighty than I intend it to), is to make a better life for me and everyone I share this world with, by living greener, more simply, and more frugally - a trio that I think complement each other so well, I don't think I can do one without the others creeping in.

I'll keep a few lists to track progress and keep thoughts and mind organized. Organization is a key part of all this for me. Just one example, but how many times have you bought something at the grocery store, come home, started putting food away, and realized you already had two or three of that item in the back of the cupboard? I know I waste money and resources when I'm not organized.

One of the first things I will do is establish a new set of life rules. I've been playing by the "buy stuff...more...still not enough" rules for too long. So I think it'll be helpful if one of my lists is comprised of new rules I make for myself to live by. The good news is that if I make the rules, I can change them at any time. I'll post updates on the new rules, as well as the old ones, how I'm implementing them, and how that works out for me.

My rule for today comes straight from the pages of everything ever written about how to save money on groceries: Make A Shopping List. I'm going to do this too (I already do when I shop for groceries, actually), but I'm going to do it for everything. I think I need some seasoning time too...maybe two weeks? Every non-grocery item has to remain on the list for at least this much time before I make a purchase. This includes online as well as in-store.

Also up on the agenda today is trying out the VTA, our local public transportation. I have a feeling it won't be easy to use, but be that as it may, I will try it at least once before dismissing it!

Enough out of me for now...enjoy the day!