The Sadness of Letting Go

Rainbow socks which I am knitting and will then probably give away.

In my journey to own less possessions I have felt buoyed as our excess belongings have left our home.  That is until I started tackling my yarn collection.  As I talked about in the previous post yarn is rich with possibilities to a knitter and can bring lots of joy.  Though today I find myself sad as I sort through the many skeins thinking of the garments I wanted to knit, but when it comes down to it don't really need.  My desire for less is trumping my desire to create.  That's simply the direction my life is turning to presently, but as I dig through my tubs of yarn it feels a little bit like a death has occurred.  The death of an identity.  My identity as a knitter is diminishing these last couple months leaving me feeling a bit blue and out of sorts.  Of course no one is forcing me to downsize, or telling me what I can and cannot keep.  It's really only me coming to the realization that my old lifestyle as a knitter does not completely fit with my vision of the minimalist lifestyle I desire.

This thought has me pondering about the phases in our lives: baby, toddler, youth, teenager, college student, newlywed, mother etc.  As well as the less obvious stages that happen in adulthood which usually have to do with our work, hobbies or interests and how they come and go.  My time working at a food co-op where all I seemed to care  about was ethical consumerism and food glorious food.  The stressful years of our trying to conceive a child where I devoured all information I could to help us in our plight.  The dark years of depression and pulling myself out of that hole.  My role as a homeschooling mama figuring out the ins and outs of educating our son.  And lastly, my life as a knitter and how it gave me an identity and  space in my life that was for and about me.  Now though, I feel the tides turning as I want to focus on my family and the ways we can spend more of our time being together; not off in our own pursuits.  I feel minimalism is the path that is going to get us there.

So, while I bag up even more yarn to clear space in our bedroom closet it occurs to me that downsizing really does happen in stages as so many people have said before me.  The last time I went through my stash I thought I couldn't possibly get rid of anymore skeins, and yet today finds me purging again.  I am still a knitter, that phase isn't completely over, but it is now relegating itself to a smaller aspect of my being - not the dominate force it was once.  Even though this shift is causing me momentary sadness I'm feeling a balance beginning in my life that I have never felt before.  That at least feels good. 

Can Knitting and Minimalism Coexist?

My current knitting project.  

At the snail pace of a dozen rows knit a week this poncho will take me all year to complete.

I'm having a crafting crisis of sorts.  After scaling back on my hobbies once, then twice I am left with knitting as my sole craft of choice.  Knitting has been my passion for the past eight years often taking up a good chunk of each day until this year that is.  This year my knitting has ground to an unexpected halt.   What's been different?  Well, this is the year I decided to not just downsize, but to embrace minimalism as a lifestyle.  Currently, I'm only on the journey to becoming a minimalist by going through my belongings, doing lots of reading about Minimalism, getting some direction and goals lined up.  In most areas of my life this journey has been an improvement to our lives, but in my hobby of knitting it has really got me stuck.  

Now, there are some aspects of knitting that run a bit contrary to how I see Minimalism working for our family.  The most obvious one is the knitter's stash of yarn.  Knitter's are drawn to yarn like moths to a flame.  We joke about yarn having fumes that mess with our minds as we leave the yarn shop with enough yarn for a sweater , scarf and hat when we only went in for a darning needle.  Yarn has very compelling qualities:  it can be all different textures, fibers, thickness, colors the possibilities are really endless.  And that my friends is what we get stuck on "the possibilities" the dream of what amazing items this yarn could become.  Of course, that's not a bad thing in and of itself but here's the hiccup, you can buy yarn a whole lot faster than you can knit it.  Which brings us to why the knitter has a stash of yarn.  We purchase the yarn with every intention of knitting it up into a wearable item, but knitting is a slow process even for a very fast knitter it takes weeks to finish a sweater.  So, often we will start dreaming of the next project, before being finished with the one we are currently knitting.  The planning process is lots of fun; looking up patterns, figuring out what yarn to use etc.  But why the yarn skeins pile up is that we are fickle and the yarn that we purchased while we were in the middle of knitting endless rows of plain stockinette stitch doesn't still interest us after completing our project.  We want something even newer, so the yarn balls pile up unused building themselves into a proper stash.  

This shopping for yarn, patterns, accessories and tools has become quite epic in scale.  All knitting education events and retreats have shopping, there are clubs that deliver yarn monthly to your house, there are indie dyers that have much built up "shop updates" that if you don't get that yarn now it will be gone forever.  There's pressure to purchase from all these sources and then your knitter friends who enable you to purchase more which I believe makes them feel better about their own purchases.  It's really crazy making.  I know they are out there but I have yet to meet a knitter who buys yarn for a project, knits it to completion and only then buys yarn for her next project.  This is the type of knitter I aspire to be, but right now I'm still the knitter with the stash and lots of half finished projects. 

I've gone through my stash and have sold off lots of yarn.  I kept only that which is currently in a partially knitted project, colors that will go with my now reduced wardrobe (I bought a lot of yarn over the years just because it was "pretty" not that it matched anything I owned) or that is earmarked for a gift.  But, this still leaves me with quite a bit and I don't know how I feel about it.  On the one hand I don't need to purchase any yarn for a couple of years, but then on the other hand I need to store all that yarn for a couple of years.  Will I even still like it by the time I'm ready to knit it?  It's not a dire situation, but it does weigh upon me. 

The next aspect of knitting that I feel is a bit contrary to minimalism is that it makes more stuff.  If I make a sweater I will have another sweater, unless I get rid of a sweater.  Simplistic explanation, but when you're trying to downside your belongings it's hard to consciously make more belongings for yourself to manage.  Now, I get around this by making gifts for others, but even my mom has told me she doesn't need more sweaters.  Then there's making items for charity; hats for cancer patients, warm clothing for the impoverished living in cold climates, socks for the homeless etc.  There are options, I simply don't feel drawn to any of them at this time.  Which leaves me still feeling a bit stuck.  

So, can knitting coexist with minimalism?  Yes, I think it can, but I don't think it's an easy path.  There is a lot of temptation to consume with this hobby at levels with which you cannot possibly keep up.  I'm not sure where this leaves me in regards to my knitting hobby, but it definitely deserves some more thought.

The Burden of Sentimental Items

An antique doll that was my fathers' that I used to play with as a little girl.

My father is a saver.  Born in 1935 in the midst of the Great Depression he was brought up learning frugal ways, saving being high on the list.  He was an only child thus the beneficiary of all his parents belongings upon their passing.  He has saved many of these possessions, along with items from his grandfather and even great grandfather.  It's very cool in its' way.  Everything has a history, a story that comes along with it enriching its' value.  I can see how this practice of passing on furniture and other belongings was popular and actually really needed many years ago.  Things cost more a century ago as they for the most part were made by hand and not mass produced.  What a blessing it would have been for the older generation to share furniture and goods with a newly married couple in need of everything to set up a household.  On both sides of my family my grandparents received some of their parents furniture as wedding gifts to furnish their new homes.  My parents too upon getting married in 1965 received passed down furniture and dishes as wedding gifts.  

When my husband and I bought our house my dad gave us a table that was his great grandfathers' as well as a piano, his mothers' dishes, vases and tchotchkes.  He also brought over the 2 antique dolls that were his and his mothers' that I very gently played with as a child.  Then when my maternal grandmother died I inherited some of her furniture, dishes and jewelry as well.  At first I was happy to receive all these items as I felt blessed to be entrusted with family heirlooms.  But then something happened.  After being on my own for some years, having my own job with money to spend I wanted my house to reflex me and my husband and not be a mini museum to my father and mothers' childhoods.  This desire of mine was met with conflict.

I have a theory that passing down belongings is a way for the older generation to let go of items they no longer want, but are low to get rid of themselves.  My father had no use or desire for all the pieces he gave us, but his sentimentality for these items was fierce.  He wanted to "visit" them, but not live with them as they no longer suited his tastes.  When I started selling a few of the items I had no space to display or no use for my dad was very hurt saying I was heartless.  My first reaction was "ouch" my next was anger.  I explained that when you give someone a gift it is no longer yours.  You have given up ownership.  It is now the recipients' right to do with the gift as they please.  He didn't see it that way.  He saw our house as an extension of his own feeling ownership over everything he had "given" us.  

What do you do when you no longer want (or maybe even never wanted) these sentimental items?  Well, in the beginning I simply packed them away putting the boxes in our basement, but that didn't sit well with trying to downsize.  Then, I started selling items on the sly not telling my father.  Which made me feel guilty and somehow wrong.   Now, I am simply giving these gifts back.  Yup, I have given back gifts saying "Thank you Dad, but I no longer want these things.  Since I know they are important to you I am returning them."  He chafes a bit at this, but when I explain that I'm either selling it or he can have it back, he always takes it.  I know it's disappointing to him that I do not desire these treasures, but that is his issue to solve not mine.  Sounds harsh huh?  It is and it isn't.  My dad is an old dog and teaching him the new trick that stuff is only stuff; that the memories are really in us and not in the object is probably not going to happen which is a bit harsh.  Why it isn't harsh though is that wanting to live my life by my values is a good thing and not at all unreasonable.  

If you have items that are sentimental to you, but you would like to live with less I would suggest that you simply take a photo of the item and let it go.  Photos can trigger our memories just as well as the item itself.  In the end it really is the memory that you want to hang onto.  For us one of the benefits of downsizing is the realization that the things you own are really only stuff and they have no power over you unless you let them.  If we lost our home and belongings to a fire, tornado what have you, while I would be sad of course, I now know that everything can be replaced.  Things are not the important part of life.  Living and really experiencing your life, that's what's important.

Small Successes

Bags and boxes of stuff waiting to be delivered to Goodwill this weekend.

Last post I wrote about breaking down your goals to keep from getting overwhelmed.  Well, I'm finding that to be really true lately.  My goal of getting all our crap outta the basement is a little too big even broken down into the categories of my stuff, son's stuff, husbands stuff and our stuff.  Basically, I'm finding what works is to go down into the basement grab one item and do one of three things:  take a photo to sell it, put it in a bag to donate or find it a new home.  If I decide to sell it I take photos, write up a Craig's List Ad and put the item on the shelves in our bedroom as it waits to be purchased.  It makes our bedroom a little crowded, but it's better mentally for me to not put anything back in the basement once I bring it up.  If I decide to donate it, I have some bags lined up by the back door to take to our local Goodwill:  one bag for clothes, one for household stuff, and one for miscellaneous items.  This really helps Goodwill when sorting out your items and for me when tracking what I can deduct for taxes.  The last action of finding it a new home is usually the hardest and can create a snowball effect you might not expect.  Not that that is bad thing, but it can make the process a bit more time consuming.

For instance, I grabbed a Rubbermaid tub marked "Office Supplies" off the basement storage shelves today and while sorting out the pens, paper clips and envelopes I realized we already had way too many of these items out aready.  Which got me to going through all of our pens to see which ones still worked, tossing those that didn't and keeping only the ones we like.  Then I moved onto the huge supply of pencils we have dividing them in half to keep and half to donate.  I moved on to emptying out our little basket where we keep rubber bands removing all the laundromat tokens, screws, paperclips and misc. debris I found in there.  Basically, that one little tub of office supplies had me cleaning out drawers and shelves all morning.  The stumbling block came when I went to find out where I could donate all these still usable items to.  First, I found TerraCycle who has lots of recycling programs, but mainly for organizations, businesses and schools.  They also had no way to search if there is a drop off near you.  Next, I found I could send them to African children in need through Develop Africa, but they really want you to donate the money to ship the items as well which makes perfect sense, but we're trying to save not spend.  Closer to home I found a shelter that list that they would take the pencils and pens on their website, but give you no information on how to drop off these items or whom to contact.  In the end I decided to put a free ad up on CL and set them all out in a bag on my front steps.  The bag was gone within an hour which is great, but I can only hope someone is putting the supplies to good use and not just tossing what they don't need into the garbage.  All things considered I'm counting it as a success for the day.

It's only a small success getting rid of one bag of things we no longer need when we have a whole basement full, but a small success a day can add up to a very successful week.  It's really the movement towards the goal that I'm finding is important to me.  Instead of having a giant list of what I accomplished each day I'm simply asking myself if I worked towards our goal of living smaller and if the answer is "yes" than that's the real accomplishment.

Breaking Down Your Goals

 My dry goods pantry now with a little room to spare.

While our ultimate goal is to move into a tiny house or other very small dwelling which we own outright, it can be so overwhelming a goal that it stops me in my tracks.  I have moments where I think "How the heck are we going to get through all this stuff and down to what we can fit in a tiny house?"  And I end up feeling overwhelmed and worse doing nothing to accomplish our goals.  Thus, I've started to think smaller (pun intended) and have set myself a smaller goal which is keeping me inspired and on track.  We have three levels to our house:  an unfinished full basement, a main floor and a second 1/2 story (just a strip of full height ceiling with the rest sloping down to 3 1/2 foot kick walls.)  Which got me to thinking what if I simply start eliminating levels?  The basement is the obvious place to start as it's only used for laundry and storage.  So, my smaller goal is to move everything out of the basement, absorb the things we need into the other two levels while getting rid of the rest.  Now, you might say this is still a very big goal and it is, but I find I can break it down even more by dividing the basement into four categories:  my stuff, my son's stuff, my husband's stuff and family stuff.  I'm starting with myself first, then will move on to family items and lastly my son's items as I will need his input.  My husband will make the decisions about his belongings and I will help as best I can.

Having made lots of room in my closet by downsizing my wardrobe, I found room to store some of my stuff from the basement.  I'm a knitter and have a stash of yarn.  Now, this stash is small by most knitter's standards, but still on the big side for our future plans.  While I have sold off all the impulse purchases, yarn I no longer like and yarn that doesn't coordinate with my wardrobe through Ravelry, Etsy and Craig's List, I'm still left with more than I can store in my compact IKEA organizer in our living room.  My closet isn't big enough for the full size Rubbermaid tubs my yarn was in, so I found some smaller containers in the basement (oh yeah we have extra of everything), broke up my stash into these and stacked them under my hanging clothes.  It's neat, not overly crowded and much more accessible then it was in the basement  - win!

This week I've also did some downsizing in the kitchen with 2 very small goals in mind: make room in the dish cupboard for my teapot and get all the pantry food from downstairs upstairs.  For the first I looked over our dishes realizing some that hardly ever get used:  our 4 champagne flutes which only come out on special occasions, a set of 6 very shallow bowls I only use for salads and a few small mismatched bowls that don't get used because we have others we like better.  These dishes didn't amount to a whole lot, but they made more than enough room for my teapot to get off the counter and into the cupboard.  For the pantry I went through our 1 1/2 upper cabinets that make up our dry food storage and took out anything that again we rarely used or that I couldn't remember when I purchased it.  I threw out the powdered sugar I only use maybe once a year if I make frosting for a cake as well as cornmeal, millet and quinoa all of which occupied a large glass container (hint: grains make great bird/squirrel food.)  I threw out food coloring I used to make play dough with when my son was little (he's now 9 1/2), salad vinegars I never use, panko bread crumbs, shredded coconut etc. etc.  I managed to make about a 1/3 of the space available to store the overstock I kept in the basement.  While not a lot of room it is sufficient, but I will have to change my shopping habits to buying less at a time to make it sustainable.

It's baby steps for sure these tasks I managed to complete this week, but they left me feeling successful and inspired and that my friends is a good goal in and of itself.

Where Has the Time Gone?

 

Confession time:  here are my two large bins of yarn. 

It's been just over a year now since I've visited this space.  Where has the time gone?  I'd like to say I have been a powerhouse accomplishing all my goals, but sadly this isn't so.  I lost my momentum last winter and fell off the wagon of downsizing.  While I did get rid of lots of stuff, more has crept back in.  Space is a vacuum as they say.  

But what really went wrong?  Well, I'd have to say a couple of things happened.  First, I tend to shop online in the dark months of January and February when my depression is at it's worst.  I can actually track this habit back quite a few years now and a habit it has become.  While it feels wonderful to look at pretty things and purchase them, I would almost instantly have buyer's remorse and lots of guilt, guilt, guilt upon receiving the item.  I realize that this has to stop and to stop it I need to stop going to those shopping sites.  Window shopping is just something I am terrible at as I always, and I mean always, end up buying something.  Being an introvert by nature makes online shopping a blessing and a curse as they say.  I avoid all the crowds, noise, and people, which for me is a good thing, but it also makes shopping too easy as I am able to do it in my pajamas at any time of day or night.  So, now I'm only using my computer to sell stuff, check email and stay motivated by reading/watching/listening to people talk about downsizing, tiny homes and minimalism.  No more shopping for me.

Secondly, I think I've put myself into temptation's path too often.  Now, temptation is very different for people, but for me this meant:  going to Sheep and Wool Festivals where there is lots of fibery goodness for sale (remember I knit and spin yarn), going to my local yarn shop just to "look" at what's new, going to knitting events like Yarnover or retreats where there is lots of shopping.  Now, I know I can't just isolate myself at home for the rest of my life, but I think knowing my weaknesses will help me.  Thus, this year I will only go to one knitting event that I'm taking a class at and will skip the shopping, instead of the four fiber events I went to last year.  

Something else has occurred to me this year too.  My crafting hobbies need to be downsized even more.  If we are going to live in a tiny house (yes, those ones you've seen on wheels) then spinning yarn has to go as it simply takes up too much room with a spinning wheel, multiple tools and all that fluffy fiber. This thought made me also acknowledge that my knitting hobby really needs a few tweaks to make it fit better with a minimalist lifestyle.  Instead of knitting whatever takes my fancy I really need to either make sure what I knit for myself coordinates my wardrobe, is something I'll actually use and something I need, or I need to knit for other people be it friends, family or charity organizations.  Knitting does make a product and that product has to go somewhere right?  This tweaking of my knitting has me getting back on that downsizing wagon with going through my yarn stash and culling as much as I can.  It also started me on another downsizing project which I'll tell you about next time.  Bye!

Books, Books, Books

My "library" of books.

I used to have lots and lots of books back when I was in Graduate school in California (it was for fine arts in case you were wondering.)  Books from all my undergraduate classes (I used to choose a class based on it's reading list), lots of Art books, biographies and novels.  I loved seeing them on my shelves and they made my sterile apartment very homey.  But when my then boyfriend / now husband asked me to take a month long camping trip as a way of getting back to Minnesota we decided to ship all my stuff home instead of renting a moving van.  Since we were shipping everything UPS and shipping costs are based on weight it quickly became apparent that many of the books had to go.  I gave them to friends and sold the rest at my local used book store as it was 1996 and email was in it's baby stages let alone online selling.

When I finally arrived home I moved in with my mother until Dan and I could find a place of our own to live.  So, I left the majority of my things in their shipping boxes waiting.  It took longer than we anticipated for us to find a house; about 1 1/2 years.  When we finally moved and I started unpacking those boxes from over a year ago I realized I didn't miss much of it, and in fact I decided to get rid of about half of all I owned.  See, even though we had this lovely house, we didn't have much furniture to put things on or in.  I was off to Half Priced Books this time to sell more of my book collection.

Of course we eventually got shelves and furniture and stuff and books crept back into our home.  Fast forward to current time and our new goal of downsizing and all those books, that seemed to grow to the space given them, had to go.  I started with selling on Amazon as I was getting very little at our local Half Priced Book Store (they usually give you something like 10% of the half off the original price.  So for example your $12.00 book they would sell for $6.00 and give you 60 cents.  Not much.)  I would look up my book title on Amazon and see what the lowest price was for a used copy.  If that price was over $10.00 I would go ahead and list it and If it was under $10.00 I found it simply wasn't worth the time and effort to ship with Amazons fees.  I did save money by using used padded mailers which my husband got for free off of Craig's List, but it still seemed like a hassle for a couple of dollars. The books I listed sold pretty fast (within 2 weeks), but you do have to wait about three weeks for the money to be deposited into your bank account. Then I took that bunch of books that were below the $10 mark on Amazon and listed them on Craig's List.  And the ones that didn't sell after a few months on CL then went to Half Priced Books. Then the books rejected by Half Priced Books got dropped off at the Goodwill on my way home.

Now, I still love to read, but I use my library for reading material instead of stores.  Once in a while the library won't carry what I want so I will bend and buy a used copy of that book, but when I'm done reading it out of the house it goes.  My personal "library" now consists of a sock knitting book, Pride and Prejudice (given to me by my husband), Gift from the Sea (given to me by my father), Watership Down (given to me by my brother), 4 cookbooks and a few books on Unschooling.  Digital books would probably be another solution, but I have yet to embrace this medium and like the feel of a good old book in my hands.

Hazardous Items Disposal

The many cleaners we need to dispose of as household hazardous waste.

After you go through all the "easy" stuff to giveaway, donate and sell you will start to come across the not so easy items.  Those that need to be washed, slightly fixed, or even those that are toxic. Hazardous waste items that require special disposal is actually a pretty large category nowadays.  Electronics (even including electric toothbrushes and toys), batteries, media items like CD's and ink cartridges, propane cylinders,  paints, solvents, automotive cleaners and fluids, household cleaners, aerosols (even hairspray), fluorescent light bulbs, mercury thermometers, pool chemicals, pesticides, appliances both gas and electric, tires, electrical cords and holiday lights now need to be properly disposed of or recycled .  Most states have household hazardous waste drop off facilities usually organized by what county you live in.  You can find Minnesota's drop-off facilities here.  

Many items can be dropped off for free, but some incur fees like old appliances (gas ones being more expensive than electric), tires, mattresses and TVs.  To avoid this we have had good luck with advertising on Craig's List for "scrappers" who want to come and take our used broken appliances away for their metal.  Usually we will say they are on our driveway and give out our address stating first come first serve.  We've never had to wait more than a day for them to be removed (but of course we live in a large metro area.)  Once we even found a local, really local (just a few blocks away from our house) woman who took old appliances for free for her business which repaired and then resold them.

Another possibility for disposing of hazardous material are libraries. Many have drop-off facilities for batteries in the form of a large garbage cans that look like a battery itself.  Libraries often also have a collection box for used eyeglasses which the Lions Club International recycles.  While not a hazardous waste item, eyeglasses that are an old prescription or style for you can still be used by someone else without the means of buying their own and the Lions Club works at facilitating this exchange.  Your old computers, cell phones, GPS etc. can also be dropped off at your local Best Buy store for proper recycling at no charge to you.  For painting supplies you can sometimes find a reuse center like Habitats for Humanity ReStore.  They have a latex paint recycling program called Mix it Up where they mix together paints based on color, sheen and use (i.e. interior vs. exterior), filter it and resell it.  They of course also take any leftover building supplies, old windows, doors, cabinets, sinks and even working appliances.  Really a great resource for donating.  The more we can keep items in use and out of the landfill the better don't you think?

Revamping Your Hobbies

 My hobby corner of the living room.

I'm a pretty crafty person and find joy in making things myself, but in our war against stuff I found being a serial hobbyist is antithetical.  Thus, I went through all of my hobbies picking out just the two that bring me the most pleasure and scrap the rest along with all their equipment.  The two I picked are knitting and spinning as fiber really is my true passion and not much more than a day goes by where I don't do one or the other.  

Beeswax candle making with all it's melting pots, molds, jars and wicking supplies was one hobby that met the chopping block.  Soap making was another, with it's dedicated stock pot, hand mixer, spoons and vast variety of oils and nut butter ingredients.  I also used to make all our lotions, lip balms, shampoo, beauty masks, sugar scrubs and even toothpaste all of which had lots of left over ingredients and containers to be sold.  Being an Art major from undergraduate and graduate school I accumulated lots of supplies for many different kinds of art making, but after I culled a few things for my son's use I sold the rest which included paints, litho print blocks, inks and tools, drawing supplies, woodworking chisels and gouges, and all of my metalsmithing materials and equipment.  It was very freeing to let go of all these supplies as I'm no longer interested in these pursuits.  I used to play the piano too, and while we have a piano now there will not be room in our next house for it so I have sold my stacks of music books  keeping only four with songs that I still play from once in a blue moon.  When we move I'll give these last books to my father or brother who still play regularly.  

The last to go was sewing and it was a hard one for me.  I've sewn clothing since I was a child, but I really don't have the long stretches of uninterrupted time that I need now that I have a child of my own.  Fabric and patterns were just accumulating on my shelves and I felt guilty over the waste, but thought I would still get to using them.  Well, now I've admitted to myself that even if I had the time I probably would choose knitting or spinning over sewing as they are very relaxing for me where sewing, if I'm truly honest, has always stressed me out.  You see if you cut the fabric wrong you now have scrap fabric as you cannot redo a cut.  Whereas with knitting you can always rip back your knitting, wind up the yarn and start a fresh.  So, I have sold most of the fabric (still have more to do), notions, lots of thread, some tools such as scissors, pinking shears and marking pens, but I do still have my sewing machine, basic thread and sewing needles for patching and making repairs.  I would eventually like to sell the sewing machine, but I'm just not ready.

And I think this is an important thing to note that I did all the above in stages as I couldn't "see" everything that needed to go all at once, but instead getting rid of one hobby made it easier to get rid of the next and so on.  Also, some items are simply harder to let go of then others, but eventually they will go if that's your goal.  I sold almost all of this on Craig's list with the exception of the fabric which I sold on Etsy.  I already had an Etsy shop so it was easy for me, but it may be worth setting up a shop if you have lots of new craft supplies with name brands (most of my fabric I knew the designer's name, company, and name of the pattern) or antiques.  People really do search for specific designer brands on fabric nowadays and I found I got a good price and they sold fairly quickly on Etsy compared to when I tried to sell my fabric and patterns on CL.

Actually, I do have one more hobby I kept, but it only takes up the space of a regular sized shopping bag and it helps me with my downsizing.  Have you guessed it?  It's scrapbooking.  I scrapbook with my friends once a month whittling our photos, child art and mementos down to a book.  I could simply keep all our photos digitally and dump the physical ones, but I find we don't enjoy them that way.  We enjoy looking through our past in the form of a book on a lap sitting close to one another on the couch.  I fit a couple to a few years per scrapbook (or in my case one scrapbook for all my childhood and youth) saving only a few special photos to remember events by.  Again, my hope is to give my son Sam memories, but not weigh him down with the past.

Donating to Charity

 My latest batch of items for donation.

Sometimes in my quest to rid our house of clutter I come to a point where I just don't want to deal with selling items, I want things gone and fast!  This is usually when I start bagging up items to donate to charity.  Making money from our unwanted stuff for us is pretty necessary so we can afford to fix up our current house to put it on the market, but selling can be a slow process and sometimes you just need to keep the momentum moving.  Donating can give you money though in the form of a tax deduction and it's nothing to sneeze at I assure you.  If you're diligent about recording what you donate it's pretty simple come tax time to plug in all those itemized deductions.  A single pair of women's pants can be worth anything from $4 - $12, depending on quality, come tax time.  Even if you just track your donations as a bag of clothing or household items you can still deduct something like $25 per bag on your taxes.

Donating to charities has really never been easier now that they will come right to your door and pick up from you directly, and you don't even have to be home!  The three I use most frequently are Vietnam Vets, Lupus and Courage Center, but there are many to choose from depending on where you live.  You can usually set up a pickup online or by calling to find out when they will be in your area.  If I'm really in a hurry to unload stuff, as sometimes you need to wait a few weeks for a pickup, I drive to my local Goodwill and drop off my items with them.

Lastly, another great option for donating used goods, if you are doing your clearing out during the summer months, are churches who will except donations for their annual rummage sales.  We have one in our area whose rummage sale is quite huge and they except just about anything.

Letting Go of Something Very Special

 

A shawl I knit this summer.

When rummaging through your house looking for things to get rid of you will probably run into something that's very special to you, but you don't use/want it anymore.  The thought of donating such an item can be too much, selling it can seem wrong so what does that leave you with?  Well, in my case giving it to someone I know who would find it desirous or useful.  What's tricky about this is if you ask someone directly they might feel obligated to take it (you've heard of Minnesota Nice?)  So, what I've been doing is posting a picture and description of the item I want to unload onto Facebook and simply ask who would like it?  It's really worked well for me and man does it feel good to give someone a gift for no specific reason.  

I've given away many things that I've knit this year, because they were never used as the color, fit, or style was wrong for me.  These knitted goods represent many hours of my time and it really brings me joy to know they will be put to good use.  Knitting is a great hobby, but sometimes I get lured into buying a yarn because the colors are so appealing even when they go with nothing I own.  Or, sometimes a pattern looks like such an interesting knit that I can't resist trying it out even if the end product is of no use for me.  When my dresser drawer no longer shut I knew something had to give or be given away in this case.  I gave away the shawl pictured above, another shawl, 2 cowls, and thick socks.  I found homes for them in a day and mailed them to their recipients the next, which costs a little money it's true, but so much easier than arranging places and times to meet up.  Besides who doesn't love getting a gift in the mail?       

Staying Motivated

Can you see our love for tubs in an effort to organize/hide all our stuff?

The tricky thing about getting rid of clutter for me is motivation.  I'll have good days where I feel I've accomplished a lot towards our goal of owning less things - numerous postings on Craig's List, bags ready and waiting for a charity pickup, closets that have been thinned out and reorganized.  But then there are those days where I look around and feel completely overwhelmed by the task at hand.  How will I ever get rid of everything in the basement?  We're planning on building our small house without a basement because of expense and because basements are great collectors of stuff.  Don't know what to do with something "Oh, just put it in the basement." you'll say until that basement becomes so full and you'll wonder what happened.  Now, I finally have to deal with all those things that got stored away down there because we didn't want to deal with them at the time.

So back to figuring out how to stay motivated.  What I do is figure out what I can do to contribute to our goal each day, but not how much I will contribute.  Meaning anything that I do to get rid of stuff is good and is enough for that day no matter how small of an action I take.  This may seem like a minor point and I didn't really get how much the distinction matters for years, but finally it clicked.  If you say "I'm going to clean out this closet today." you've set yourself a expectation of completing your task and if you don't, and let's face it stuff does happen to take you away from your task, you end up feeling disappointed in yourself.  To change it around I now say "I'm going to work on cleaning out that closet today." I've still set an expectation of cleaning out the closet but not how much I expect to get done.  See, even if I spend as little as 5 minutes working on sorting out that closet I've accomplished what I set out to do and thus feel better about myself. This distinction between what and how much is something I learned from my husband.  He would never commit to getting a project done in a certain amount of time because he knows you can't know what is going to happen along the way so why set yourself up.  Honestly, I used to find it maddening until I realized he didn't get as stressed, frustrated or worked up as I did when working on house projects and wouldn't I be better off not feeling those emotions?

I try not to take days off from downsizing either as they usually make me feel guilty and degrade my motivation.  There are days I just don't have it in me to tackle some areas of our house, but I try to find something, anything really, so that at the end of the day I can feel I contributed to our goal.  If the basement is too scary, and let's face it it often is, I'll clean out a single drawer of clothes, renew a few listings on CL, schedule a charity pickup or throwout some old paperwork or magazines in the recycling.  Nothing monumental for sure but it does keep my momentum going and it's the moving forward that really keeps me on task.  On the flip side there will be days where I'm on fire and get tons done, but I try to just be grateful for them and not set them as a standard to live up to everyday.  We'll get to our goal as they say one day at a time.

Weekend Work & Our Start into Downsizing

 

Our storm windows in need of a little TLC.

Snow is supposedly coming to Minnesota today which meant a hustle yesterday to finish any outdoor work yet needing to be done.  Our house is old and still has it's original windows which means swapping out screens for storm windows.  Our storm windows are in need of major work - lots of glazing, sanding and painting.  We were hoping to get to it this summer, but with moving my mother out into her own apartment (she lived with us for the last five years) most of the summer was spent organizing her many, many things.  Her moving out really provided the opportunity for us to move ourselves and get us going on our downsizing goal.  

You see my mother is what I would call a mild hoarder.  When she moved from her large 3 bedroom ranch house to ours my husband filled a 40 foot dumpster with her junk and clutter as well as taking many, many trips to the dump (there was a 3 week timeline to get her out and moved so unfortunately much stuff went into a landfill instead of finding new homes.  It was pretty sad all around.)  But she still had lots of stuff left over and it came in a big plop into our house where she filled the upstairs and about 1/2 our basement with mounds of crazy stuff.  (my first curling iron from 1981 was down there along with 2 sets of hot rollers she hadn't used in decades.)  We felt hostage to all these things and they really kept us from clearing out our own excess stuff.  Heck, there was just no space to work in.  Then my mother would panic if I tried to get rid of anything and would "rescue" items I wanted to sell or donate by keeping them herself.  So, stuff got shuffled around, but not much really left the premises over the last 5 years.

Now, all her stuff is gone and her responsibility to deal with,  leaving us to finally deal with ours.  So, this weekend we put up all the windows even though they look pretty bad.  Dan did get to power washing them over the summer so most of the glazing and much of the paint is missing.  We hope to take them down one at a time and fix and paint them in our basement over the winter months (of which we have 6 here in MN.)  They really look too awful to leave until next summer, and my guess is we'd hear from the city if we did.  Now to find the space to work on them.  Hmm...back to the basement for me.

So As I Was Saying...

A dark ugly corner of our basement that needs going through.  Yikes!

 
I was thinking I left a few things out the other day about Craig's List.  For instance shipping. You will get asked about shipping items from time to time and I am not wholly against this if the item in not likely to break (I've sold a lot of yarn this way) and the buyer is willing to pay through PayPal.  I have the shipping supplies on hand due to my knitted toy business so it's not really a big deal especially since you can buy and print labels online at USPS.  But do make sure that the buyer pays for shipping charges and the PayPal fee for sending the money.

What to sell on CL was another thought I had, but that one is pretty easy to answer - pretty much anything if you're willing to wait long enough.  By that I mean that your stuff might not sell and at the end of 30 days your listing will no longer be renewable.  It will still be up but way down at the bottom of the listings.  Then what should you do?  Well, I give items up to three months to sell so I make a new ad for the same item and delete the old non renewable ad.  This may sound like a pain and if it is for you then go ahead and donate that item.  I basically try selling everything first and if at the end of 3 months it still hasn't sold (hasn't happened too often) I will donate it or re-list it in the "free" section on CL.  

I'd like to talk more about what I give away on Craig's List.  Mainly things that I think would get thrown out if I donated them or items that the charity pickups don't accept.  For instance, today I gave away a WaterPik that was only used a few times, but somehow we managed to loose the charger for it.  Now, my son didn't take to it so I don't want the hassle of finding another charger, but that doesn't mean someone else would mind.  I also got rid of all my hair accessories like barrettes, binders and clips since I cut my hair short as well as all my nail polish , new emery boards and 4 extra clippers.  Totally useful stuff, but really unsellable.  I feel good not to put more in a landfill and hopefully I helped someone out.  It's simply recycling I guess. 

Now it's funny that I'm going to say this as I have an ad for clothing up currently, but the one thing I find that does not sell well is clothing.  The ad I have up now is for new pants that were washed then deemed too big by my son - can't be returned, but easy to sell.  And certain high end children's clothes will go, but regular used clothing I find it's better to simply donate to your favorite charity.  

Someone asked me why I didn't use eBay, especially when we sold all my son's Legos, as you can get a better price and my response was all the fees and if the purchaser didn't like it the item they leave bad feed back and nasty emails (happened once to me and it was ugly - yuck.)  No fees with CL and if they don't like it they don't buy it - so simple.  You may not get the best price for your item, but then again you did get more than at a garage sale where you sit around all day and maybe sell it. 

Well, I think I've finally exhausted all I can say about Craig's List except if you haven't tried it yet - do!  It can be very rewarding. 

Craig's List Solution to Downsizing and Clutter

Hello again.  Today I'm going to talk about how Craig's List can be a great solution to downsizing and getting rid of clutter.  What you see above is all the items I currently have listed on CL.  Since deciding to move and build a new smaller house, I have been actively trying to get rid all our extra stuff and one great way is Craig's List.  Because we need money to fix up our current place, and money to build our new place, I try to sell anything I can for extra cash.  I will sell things for as little as a dollar, which most people would say isn't worth the time of placing the ad, but I disagree as all those single dollars can add up faster than you think.  The low price makes people stop and look at your ad and then they can see all the other items you've listed with the usual result being they buy many of your items instead of just the one.  They get a fantastic deal and you have less things to maintain in your home plus a little extra money - a win win situation if you ask me.

To be successful on Craig's List I feel you need to be able to do/accept the following: 

1) You need to be available.  If you have a very hectic schedule arranging pick ups is going to drive you nuts.  I'm a home most everyday as I homeschool my son and he likes being a home most of the time so our schedule is very open.

2) You have to be prompt with replies.  People will lose interest, think better of it or have found the item from someone else.  Now, some things are really easy to sell and you will always have offers, but unique items can take a long time to sell so don't lose that person who wants it.

3) You need time.  If you're really strapped for time it might be better for you just to donate items to a local charity, especially one of the ones that can pick up - they are awesome.  Dragging out the item, taking a photo, loading that photo on your computer and typing up the ad do take time.  But, you don't have to do lots at once.  I usually take a lot of photos at one time then only write up an ad or two a day.

4) Renew your items as often as you can.  CL now has a renew feature where you can just press a renew button, which is to the left of your ad on your account page, every 48 hours and it will bring your item back to the top of the list. 

5) Know your boundaries and your limits and stick to them.  For instance, I only communicate through email.  I don't like giving out my phone number and I find email less invasive to my day.  Also, I only meet people if they are spending a lot of money.  It just isn't worth my time and gas to drive somewhere for only a few dollars.  If people want to meet somewhere because they are scared of something bad happening I tell them I'll come out to their car or the sidewalk and we can do the transaction there which relieves most people.  What I'm looking for is transactions that make the least interruption to my day.  Now these two examples might not work for you, but what I'm saying is you can have CL work for you and not the other way around.

6) Lastly, people will stand you up.  It just happens.  Some give notice and others don't, but you do need to accept that it's part of doing business on Craig's List because if you don't it can be truly maddening.

I have been plugging away at Craig's List this year and have made over $3000.  Now, you might be thinking I sold expensive items, but no, most of my ads were for things $10 and under (which does say something about how much stuff we have - yikes.)  But, the best thing besides earning more income and getting rid of unneeded stuff was that it inspired my son.  He wanted to buy a Nintendo 3DS, but I told him we didn't have it in our budget to buy him one, even a used one.  I then asked him how did he think he could make the money himself and he said he could sell his Legos on Craig's List.  It was a great solution to trade an unused toy for a new toy with the added benefit that he got the satisfaction of earning his own money and getting to purchase what he wanted with that money.  I'll leave you there as this post is getting quite long.  I guess I have a lot to say on the matter.  Hope you find it helpful.  Bye!

In The Beginning...

Hello.  I'm starting out this blog to chronicle my family's move from a cluttered life that's too financially and emotionally stressful to one that is smaller, more manageable and simpler.  We are a family of three, dad Dan, mama Ann and son Sam along with our black Labrador Easy living in a house in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Our house is not big by today's standard, at least in the United States.  It has a footprint of 750 square feet with a full, but unfinished basement, and a 300 square foot 1/2 story upstairs.  It was one of the houses they built right after WWII to accommodate for the baby boom and all those growing families.  

When we purchased this house we were only the second family to own it since 1945, and very little had been updated since then.  We could barely afford it, which shocked us as our mortgage was $20,000 less than the bank said we could afford to purchase - I guess they thought food, heat and gas were optional items in our life.  We had to upgrade the electric right away and the roof was on it's last legs.  Then came a new furnace (the old one was the original), a remodeled bathroom so we could have a shower, new back door, outside lights, lots of painting interior and exterior, appliances...you get the picture.  Much more still needs to be done to this place, but we find we don't want to put more money into this home that will take us 28 more years to pay off. 

It wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't refinanced a couple of times since we purchased the house in 1997.  Our reasons for doing so were to pay for the updates we made and the infertility medical bills which made having our son Sam a reality as well as the classic reason of living above your means.  We have since reigned in our spending and payed off all of our debt besides the mortgage.  Still life is expensive here.  We live in a small house, own one vehicle, don't take vacations (minus a camping trip or weekend hotel stay somewhere drivable) and our biggest luxury is I don't work so I can homeschool our son.  But to accomplish all this my husband works on average about 60 hours a week leaving before we wake up and coming home after dinner.  I'm sure this is not a unique situation, and we're very lucky in many regards, but we're finding that something needs to change if we want more time together as a family.

So, we've decided to get rid of the last of our debt and sell our house with the next step being we'd build a much smaller home in the country that we would own outright - no more mortgages!  But, for this to happen we first need to empty out this home, do some more repair, and figure out new employment that's not location specific.  Piece of cake - right?  Well, not exactly a piece of cake, but definitely doable.  I plan to chronicle the steps on this blog as a way to help me see we're making progress towards our goals while keeping clear on what still needs to be done.  Won't you join me?