Hi everyone! My name is Melissa and I write over at Living A Frugal Life. Come visit me and get some new frugal ideas a long with some deals, coupons and DIY projects. I LOVE frugal things and ideas and I am so excited to be guest posting today to talk a little about a type of living frugal that is a daily part of my life.
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I am by far not an expert on all this simple living stuff. But I do know first hand the cost of clutter. I grew up in a home that was clean and taken care of, but my room on the other hand was not. I always had a hard time getting rid of things because I am a saver by nature. I always wondered what I could use that for in the future. The 1/2 used spirals always got the used pages thrown away and the other pages saved. I saved them because it was good paper and I would be wasting if I got rid of them.
This way of thinking flowed into my house after marriage. I was always saving something for later. My house wasn’t dirty, but I had a lot of stuff. As I had kids, I saved EVERYTHING from baby 1 to baby 2 and then to baby 3. The summer before we moved I realized that we just had too much. I LOVE garage sales and decided to go through all our clothes and furniture and get rid of those things we really didn’t need.
My definition of need has changed a lot since that time. We got rid of a few things but not most of it. So 4 garage sales later, we are finally down a bit to more of needs. When we moved down to So Cal we decided to get rid of over 1/2 of our furniture. So we did one last moving sale and sold as much of it as we could. It felt so good to get rid of those less needed items.
When we moved again (6 months later) we found that we don’t 100% fit in our space. We have spent the last month just trying to make it work, but after much thought it is time to simplify yet again. Simplify and be VERY real with myself. I began to look back on all those years where we stored so many things. Starting with the times I stored all my papers and drawings from school to the times we saved our high school memories to the baby stuff and finally to now as we have downsized.
I have discovered what all that clutter did. It was more then just stuff, stuff that took up space, it made our life harder. It made cleaning harder, organizing harder and mostly living harder. It took away much of my enjoyment over the years because I was always wondering if I would get things done if I stopped to spend time with my family. It kept me from inviting people over or having an open house for our friends because I didn’t want them to have to battle with all the stuff.
I now see how much less stress I would have had, how much more fun I could have been and how much I missed out. I have come to terms with my past and I am ok with that, because it has brought me to who I am now. I know now that I value my life, my family and my happiness way more then the clutter and I know now that I can live without anything I need to as long as we are all happy and together. Real needs always come first and the rest of it is just things that make our life a little better.
What do you think is the cost of clutter? please leave a comment and tell me your thoughts!
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My Mother was raised to never get rid of papers including Charge card applications and old utility bills. I even got her a shredder that she never uses. She is now 72 and not in good health. So now me and my sisters have been going over her house on Mondays to shred 35 years of papers and cleaning drawers and closets of papers pictures and old cloths and newer clothes she has never worn because she can’t find them. Oh yes and she moved all this down from Michigan 7 years ago and built up sinse then. I would rather be playing cards with her and she accuses me of running around too much. I should slow down, but what she doesn’t realize is half of it is for her, because she has never organized her own life to make her life simpler!
Clutter costs me ENERGY! If I decide I want to go bake something yummy, and then find the kitchen/dining area a mess, dishes need done, etc., by the time I get all the dishes and clutter done and put away, I’m way too tired to bake anything! How much easier it is to walk into a clean kitchen, I can whip something up in no time, and still have the energy left to hang out with my family!
I, also, have saved everything. What I could do with it later excited me. I am in the same boat as were. My vacation this year is to clean out the garage. We moved 1 yr ago, and our garage holds all our junk, not our cars. My son has so many clothes, yet I can’t find half of them. I am so DONE with clutter!!! Here’s to my vacation and setting free from the clutter! My son is 8 and I think he needs a normal childhood (i.e. – friends being able to come over, and finding toys to play with with all the pieces).
Awesome for you to have worked so hard to get where you are today. Baby steps for me..but I know I’ll get there!
I could have written this article – it expresses so well how much of my life has been ruled by clutter. I tend to be one of those people that clings to things because of sentimental value or because I “might use them someday”. And as a consequence, I too, have missed out on entertaining friends and family, and just the peace of mind that comes from knowing you can enjoy yourself and not worry that the house needs cleaning somehow. It’s something I’m working on and this article definitely is a good reminder of why.
Clutter makes me insane. I cannot function with a lot of ‘stuff’ around me. I work much better when everything has it’s own place & I am not trying to figure out where to put this or that.
Glad you got rid of your clutter & get to spend more time with your family & friends now.
Clutter also tends to COST me money… when I don’t organize our clothes, I forget what we have and go out to buy more. When the clothes finally get organized I see that my daughter now has triple the amount of sweaters she needs because I forgot about the first ones!
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