Comments on: Goodbye clutter, I won’t miss you

By: smallnotebook

smallnotebook — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:13:27 +0000

Sandra, I can relate. I used to think I had to wait until clothes were worn out to give them away, but now I think that not wearing them is a good enough reason.

Teresa, the turned-hanger idea is very simple! It makes it easy to see what hasn’t been worn.

By: Sandra Gonzales

Sandra Gonzales — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:38:00 +0000

I was just telling a friend that I wish I could downsize my closet but I love ALL of my clothes. Well, I made the commitment to really look in my closet and I found six pairs of jeans from circa 1997. Eleven years later…..how pathetic! They were in really good condition and I guess that’s why I never got rid of them. But I took a good look at the cut of the jean and they’re seriously outdated. Goodbye ’97 jeans!

Next week I’m tackling my shoes…. (to be continued).

By: teresa

teresa — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:29:51 +0000

We also decided to delcutter. and one way to do it in the closet is each time you wear something, trun the hanger a different direction thatn you usually hang your clothes. at the end of the month, anything that hasn’t been worn, goes out. no questions! it works great!

By: Jane

Jane — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:33:33 +0000

When my daughters were in their teens, they would complain, “I don’t have anything to wear”. But their closets and dressers were full. They told me that most of the stuff was wrong, (didn’t fit, wrong color, didn’t like, etc) I put am empty box in the hall closet and marked it DONATE. As they found something that they didn’t want, they put it into the box. When the box was full, I took it to Goodwill and put a new box in place. This way, I could see that they really didn’t have anything to wear (HA!) and the declutter-ing went on every week.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:50:19 +0000

Love this post…it’s going to help me this afternoon when I talk (lecture) my daughter about what she should keep in her “new” room and what she should let go…

And then I’ll do the same in many of the stuffed closets I have around the house….

Our house will become larger before Labor Day!

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:01:09 +0000

I am a Get Rich slowly reader so new to this blog. I recently read an article(but where?) about someone who was paring down her wardrobe to what she really wears. I will have three days w/o family in the house in 2 weeks and I plan to put in one place everything I do not wear regularly(I will keep the good suit and dress). I hope to do this in 2 days(I also want to spend some time enjoying the peace and quiet by reading and by eating slowly) and on the third day, list it all and drive it to the thrift shop.

By: Joey

Joey — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:26:38 +0000

I stumbled here after beginning a quest to purge my house of everything. I’ve come across this belief inside me that I don’t need possessions to be satisfied. I feel like most of my time is spent maintaining my possessions or figuring out what else I’d like to acquire.

I’m craving open corners, bare walls. It’s gone as far as making plans to eliminate furntiure acquired from relatives and friends, random junk placed on the mantel to create that tossed-collage feel. I loved it at first, now I just find it tiring and damaging.

Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s the economy, but less is really more, and I can’t wait until my apartment is warmly on this side of being cavernous.

Thanks for the article, it’s reinforced my thinking and encouraged me to keep going.

By: smallnotebook

smallnotebook — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:58:54 +0000

That’s a good question jermangirl. I’ll share what I did when Lane turned two last month. At a family gathering a couple of weeks before her birthday, I simply said, “If you’re thinking about buying Lane a present, I just want to let you know that her favorite toy right now is a plastic grape from a faux fruit arrangement that she found discarded at the park. She has been playing with it constantly for the past two weeks. So just keep that in mind; you could give her a gift bag with tissue paper and nothing else, and she would like it just as much.”

I think it was helpful to my family members who wanted to express their affection through giving, but don’t see her every day to know she doesn’t need a lot of toys.

And great job doing your garage sale!

By: jermangirl

jermangirl — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:15:57 +0000

You have articulated everything that was in my head just prior to our garage sale last month…when all my friends thought I was crazy to be getting rid of so much “stuff”. Here’s my question though…how do I limit the stuff that other people bring into my house? Gifts from well-meaning grandparents, etc. I have stopped accumulating for the most part…but the stuff still piles up!

By: smallnotebook

smallnotebook — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:19:47 +0000

Ok, now once the clutter is identified, the next step is to get it out of the house! Otherwise it will just get absorbed right back in with the rest of the stuff. I just dropped off the final bags this weekend. It’s nice to have that space back!