Cindy's Weekly Wisdom May 30th marked the end of my second year of decluttering and the end of the second year of reporting daily on Facebook what I have decluttered. (Possibly I've missed a few days, but not many.) In the past 731 days (Leap Year), I have decluttered 3690 items and made $2471.20 plus $1000 barter for repair work on my van in exchange for our car, which we did not replace. Yes, that's a heck of a lot of stuff, but let's remember that the average house today is almost twice as big as it was in the 1950s, while families are closer to half the size. The concept of the … [Read more...]
Space Goals
One of the areas of my home that I have been working on regularly since the very beginning of my declutter mission is my craft room. At the beginning all I knew was that I had too much stuff and I didn't really have an ultimate goal aside from to keep working at it until I was satisfied I had gone far enough. As I have slowly gotten closer and closer to that point my goal started to become clear. I wanted what I owned to fit into the craft organising cubes that I had long ago purchased for the task. No overflow  into other rooms in the house, no stuff in other items of furniture, no stuff in … [Read more...]
Downsizing?
I have discovered a new way to invigorate the desire to declutter. It is unconventional but it sure got me taking another look in what I thought were my fairly decluttered cupboards. I have mentioned before that when my husband retires we intend to downsize to a smaller townhouse or apartment. Just recently we have been toying with the idea of doing it sooner rather than later. In fact for some time now hubby has been constantly looking at on line real estate sites and showing me properties but we never actually do anything about it. Well, last week we finally phoned an agent and arranged … [Read more...]
The Big Freezer “Use it Up” Challenge
This is my freezer, not Dizzy's. As you can see it's not big enough to hold food clutter. Due to that fact the food in it is constantly being decluttered. Last week Dizzy informed me she was totally committed to Buy Nothing New November, a self imposed challenge as she was not able to comply during October. Not being one to do it the easy way Dizzy has committed to only buying milk and bread while feeding her whole family with just the contents of her Freezer for the whole month.  If I attempted that my family would stave to death due to the minuscule size of my freezer but that is a whole … [Read more...]
What are you leaving to your family
I know we have been over this topic more than once but it bears repeating over and over. Here at 365 Less Things readers often share their stories of sad situations where their family have had a mammoth task of clearing out the home of a deceased loved one. At such a trying time it is hard to have to make rational decisions about what to do with all that stuff, especially if it is a case of a really cluttered household. It is natures course that when one life ends others must go on and often these other lives are busy and complicated enough already. Trying to find the time necessary to … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – Have Storage Will Clutter, part 2
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom When Colleen wrote Have Storage Will Clutter, I assumed it would be about storage units, which exist all over the US, some row after row of garages, and others (literally) high rise buildings with full heating and air conditioning services. Some people's junk in the US lives better than many citizens. Recently I was  at a class with my eldest daughter and was telling one of the fathers about the blog. He immediately told me that his chore for that day was cleaning out the garage. The coach then approached and asked if we were talking about cleaning out a storage … [Read more...]
Simple Saturday ~ Craft room before & mid-declutter
It's the big reveal, not of a completely decluttered craft room but more of the extent to the amount of craft supplies I actually had in the first place. Also as the heading today implies I really only am in mid-declutter of this area. I intend to continue in my usual gradual manner until I am content that I have the situation under control. The process of taking the photos opened my mind even further to how much area this takes up in ratio to how little time I spend actually being creative in it. If you are even in doubt about what needs clearing out in an area I suggest you take a look at it … [Read more...]
Day 320 The journey so far
When we knew we would be moving back to Australia from the USA in July 2007, we wanted to move straight into our town-house with all our belongings and settle quickly into our new life. I suppose that is when we truly began the decluttering. We did several things to purge items we knew we didn't want to take back with us. Luckily, we sold some stuff at a planned neighbourhood garage sale. We also listed other things for sale to other Aussies who were staying in the US, and sold some things to the family who replaced us. We also donated a bunch of stuff to charity. I kept several electronic … [Read more...]
Day 242 Cleaning Out the Closet
A guest post by - My Husband During a recent overseas business trip I read about an experiment to choose six clothing items and only use those items for a month. You could have multiple copies of each item, even a different colour counted as a separate item but underwear, sleepwear, shoes and jackets etc did not count. I looked at my standard travel wardrobe, and found two pairs of Columbia pants, four sweat-wicking golf shirts (three colours) and two pairs of shorts. Five items to which I could add a more formal shirt for those dressier occasions, and still meet the Six Items or Less … [Read more...]
Day 219 Minimizing the kids wardrobe
Earlier this week I received a comment from Angelina requesting that I write a post about minimizing kids' wardrobes. Below is what she wrote... I love your blog, I read it everyday. I am a stay at home Mom with two kids. I was wondering if you can write about Minimalist Wardrobe for Kids. My kids have so much clothes, I don’t know how to keep up with them. My mother in law buys them clothes all the time, non-stop. The clothes are driving me crazy. Keep up the great job, I can't get enough of your blog, I’ve recommend your sites to my family and friends too. Now first up I would … [Read more...]