Storage boxes, containers, makeup organizers, bins, baskets, and shelves. It doesn't matter how many ways you stash it, hide it or divide it, it's still there!
my MINDSET: minimalist
I don't think it's so much the amount of stuff I have to clean up that bothers me, as it is what this has done to us mentally. Our dependency on products to bring us joy or fill a void. I understand celebrating birthdays and Christmas as a normal time for us to feel the need to give and receive, especially to children, I mean what's greater than seeing the smile on their face? Well that's actually something that scares me. They get really HAPPY about plastic crap, like literally. I want them to be happy about spending time together and having fun, not GETTING "made in China" crap. I feel like it's become so excessive. As an adult, what's more thrilling? The part just before opening it where it's exciting because its a mystery, or the actual gift itself. I guess it depends on if the gift totally knocks your socks off ( like I got a ticket to anywhere in the world for my high school graduation gift and I still can't believe it). I think most women will also agree with me that it is really hard to focus when your hitchen is dirty, your room is messy and your main work space is cluttered. You just can't focus on what's important, or use that as an excuse for procrastinating and not getting any work done towards their bigger goals and dreams. I also believe in making space for the things that are important and when your life is full of craptastic items that you can't see past, sometimes it's hard to appreciate the good stuff.
The following experiences set the stage for my realization that I didn't need stuff to make me happy. I had always had stuff and the areas of my life that were failing were not being fixed by adding stuff to it. My parents seemed miserable and had money and miserable when they didn't. "Stuff" never fills a void and creates dependency on "things" to make us feel better. Not what I want to teach my kids. I spent years depending on outside sources to make me happy, numb the pain or help me forget for just a moment. It never worked. What worked was working on what was going on inside me, still a work in progress.
THE JOURNEY
As a young teen I would say I was pretty organized but we had gone from living in a very big house (some might even venture so far as to call it a castle lol) to a normal size house to a very small apartment. We downsized a lot and I'm sure we downsized "things", but the amount of stuff our entire family had just swallowed us up in that tiny apartment. We weren't hoarders, but it probably looked close to it in some parts of the house.
We moved and I neglected to pack all my things until the last minute and was forced to leave things behind. The same happened after moving out the next place I share with my mom and younger brother and sister. My mom decided she was moving across the country and I had no arrangements for where I planned to live. I lived out of a friends closet for a few months and slept on their couch. A very low point for me. I eventually moved into my own place in Joshua Tree with my ex who was a Marine. He was a neat freak like me but also unstable. When I left my ex after 7 years I boarded an airplane to Ohio with just 2 suitcases and left everything else in his parents garage. It's probably in a bonfire ash pile. Thankfully his parents did ship some boxes of some of my childhood stuff but I know I am missing some things I try to not think about.
Fast forward another 7 years...
For my baby's 1st birthday I asked everyone to just to come celebrate, no gifts please. She was born in January and over the course of the year had been spoiled of course. So by the time her 1st birthday came around right after Christmas, what more could she possibly need? I was very grateful and appreciative for the things that were still gifted to her, because time, thoughtfulness and money had been spent.
But what does a 1 year old really need? Diapers and clothes. What did a 1 year old get for their birthday in 1950, the dawn of consumerism?
Around this time is when the "things" in my house started feeling like they were caving in on me. I now had 4 other people's things rapidly accumulating and there wasn't much I could do about other people's desire to give to my kids.
For me, a tough area to tackle is the fact that my step-kids have lots of family who buy them a lot of stuff. Christmas kinda sucks because they HAVE to spend it with their mother's side of the family first and they practically buy them everything they've asked for, so our Christmas is a bust. It's not easy to be a minimalist when people are constantly buying your kids things.
It's not common, I get it. Being a minimalist is not normal or easy either in an era of mass production and consumption. And especially not common for a family with 3 kids.
I want to be like the guys in Minimalist (please watch that documentary on Netflix if its still available). I'm pretty sure it was on there that they showed a family of 5 like mine who were minimalists. It can be done!
It's hard to get the whole family on board. They've been coming around though. When they SEE my kids bedrooms its like a real wake up call. I think everyone thinks my kids are deprived.
LETS TALK ABOUT TARGET
I just don't go to Target anymore like I used to. How many times have you walked up to the cashier and said "I came in for toilet paper," then nervously laughed as you set a pile of non-toilet paper items on the conveyor belt. When I became a new mom 3 years ago, I, like most moms spent a lot of time at Target. I was a stay at home mom with my newborn and was having major cabin fever and bored of the daily routine. I mean, sitting, holding, feeding or rocking a baby 18 hours a day is fun and all but it can get pretty mundane. The solution? Target. If this isn't like the hub for moms I don't know what is. Like I said, I had my baby in January so it's really freaking cold, so walks in the park are not possible. Target is the complete package, especially with Starbucks in it! It's usually not very busy during the day and you can stroll around and look at lots of really pretty, neat, relatively affordable stuff at a better quality (or just packaged nicer). It really takes your mind off of stuff, I get it. You know Target spends millions of dollars understanding their consumers. They track your purchases. STORYTIME: This father got a flyer from Target in the mail addressed to his teenage daughter, something about "you should register with our baby registry". It was insulting to him so he called corporate to complain about its inappropriateness. Target admitted to assuming that women were pregnant based on recent purchases tracked via credit cards and apologized. Only to find out later that his daughter was indeed pregnant. Target knows best!
My favorite section? The clearance end caps. You know what I'm talking about! Where I can find a "need" for just about anything...at the right price, of course. It was hard but after realizing how much crap I was frivolously buying I had to stop. I hate living paycheck to paycheck and I wasn't helping! As a stay at home mom I always felt a need to provide financially so my new thing was buying stuff on clearance and turning around and reselling it for profit. A new excuse or reason to shop (its actually really smart) but when things didn't sell I was left with them (sometimes I did return them). So I stopped going out shopping. I have found other ways to spend my time, like running my own business, working out and writing a book.
How to Get RID of the CRAP
How am I going to achieve this minimalistic lifestyle with my family of 5? Like I said, I am doing my part. I have stopped shopping out of boredom or depression. It's like if you have a sugar addiction, you just try to not bring that $#!t in the house. Same with shopping, just don't go the the trigger places. And actually deal with the problem, stop masking it with stuff.
What about online shopping you say? While I do have a Prime account and am with Uberzon (a company that sends emails every single day, afternoon and night with codes for products you can purchase at massive discount) these things however are not necessities 90% of the time. I have really changed my behavior because I am drowning!
I donate endlessly! I have literally put 3 giant bags of donations A WEEK on my porch for the Veterans to pick up. 3! A week! For months now. Here's the phone number for them, its awesome they come to pick it up so you don't have to pack it in the car and find a drop. 1800-535-3834.
Garage sales? I got tired of garage sale-ing because living in Ohio it really can only be done half the year and the rest of the time you're still stuck with the crap that didn't sell unless you donate it. So I've come to just not care if I make my money back and just donate most things. I'm learning to embrace all this woo woo stuff and believe that I am living in abundance, not scarcity.
I like the idea of donating to schools, day-cares and to food banks and the homeless. If you have decent toys you no longer want find a place like a daycare and ask them if they could use some. The homeless are always needing blankets, coats, toiletries, umm, everything.
Make a choice. I have to make a real conscious decision to just not buy it unless its necessary. The amount of makeup I have is preposterous for someone who rarely puts any on. I'm learning to only keep the things that I love having and that bring me joy. Oh crap, like Marie Kondo teaches!
The wardrobe now is a tough situation. I am very, hmm, how should I put it, interesting? I like weird pieces of clothing. While I have dwindled my wardrobe down a lot and try to have simple pieces like white and black t-shirts, I still like my totally random pieces because that is one way I like to express myself. I do pretty much wear the same things for days though so I don't need a huge wardrobe. I've stopped my stock piling habits as if we were going into an apocalypse.
Baby STeps
It's tackling one room at a time or one area at a time so that I don't feel overwhelmed. I have looked at a room and just been so upset at the mess that I couldn't even start to work on it. Just start.
Also if you get stuck on a specific item, it is probably safe to say you can toss it. Maybe you are over thinking it, emotionally attached in some weird way. But imagine your house burning, what would you stop and save? Exactly!
Out of sight out of mind. I keep a storage bin for each kid to keep their mementos. Things that they will never want to get rid of. And shove that sucker in the attic if you're lucky to have one.
And that's all I have. So far! Hopefully you've enjoyed this post and I appreciate it if you did stop by. Thank you so much!
I can't wait to see how long it is until this actually happens!