Anyone want to join me in a minimalist journey?

[lucysnowe]

I've been reading a load of minimalist mum blogs and have been brainwashed inspired . We are undergoing some building work at the mo and the amount of stuff everywhere is absolutely doing me head in. Once it is finished I want to have a ginormous sort and throw out. We are getting a tumble dryer and I plan to start culling clothes, sheets, towels etc, with the aim of getting ALL washing done each week and not have massive full up bins cluttering up the place. Next: toys, ornaments, and random bits of paper. Anyone fancy doing the same for the New Year?

Currer are you a Buddhist?
Totally off topic but I read 'Buddhism For Mothers' and its such an inspiring book! One of the best parenting books I've read!

About your CD's, try and imagine the space you would reclaim once they're gone? That's how I'm trying to think about my bedside cabinets I need to let to off...

Try getting rid of a few and see how you feel?

I spent the morning at ikea and didn't buy anything! Minimalism certainly saves money

I walked through the kids section and checked out bunk beds there (recap: moving soon and my kids will be sharing small room) and the bottom bunk felt so closed in I wouldn't feel comfortable having my youngest sleep there, it doesn't seem fair. Luckily I was having them hand made and I haven't placed the actual order yet! So bunks are out of the question now. Now it's an option of a floor bed for each child or a single bed with a roll out underbed trundle, Ikea do a cream daybed iron version. Or looking at the option of losing the kids dresser and squeezing two singles in somewhere and thinking of another way of storing kids clothes.

Well, I did the childrens books today, and it wasn't as hard as I thought. Even dh seems to be on baord with that part of it. I have offered them to my friend who has recently split from his wife so is building up things for his dc at his new house. Anything he doesn't take will go to charity.

I'm going to leave the towels and sheets for a couple of days as I have nowhere to put the bags until my Mum goes home from visiting. The towles and sheets will be going to the rag bag bins at school, and the dc are not back until 7th Jan so the bags will be cluttering up for a while.

Then I need to think about my next project. It will be easier once the dc are back at school.

Just rediscovered this link:
zenhabits.net/a-guide-to-creating-a-minimalist-home/

MM, two singles with underbed storage?

Currer, we stopped buying cds in around 2003(?) as we were downloading everything, so I found that a collection that sort of stopped then didn't really feel like a 'collection' iyswim. I got rid of mine, sold as a job lot and feel great.

Just been through clean laundry taking out trousers ds2 has grown out of in massive growth spurt in last 2 months - this leaves him with 3 pairs of non-school trousers and 1 pair of trackie bottoms that fit. This really should be plenty!

The more stuff I let go of the more I realise that this is about so much more than space, aesthetics, over-consumption. I find it so hard to live the way I want to! (More reading, more making and mending, more time with friends and dc, gardening, working hard and supporting my family - less screen-time and basically less faffage...). I have put so much of my security in having thjngs just in case... Which is why getting rid of stuff feels risky and liberating at the same time...

Harriet, totally agree. There is much more to this than just getting rid of stuff. It shifts your mindset in lots of ways. For me there's a lot of stuff about self-sufficiency (mental and emotional as well as physical), consumerism and environmental issues.

We had a good day and DP seems to be doing more than me. He cleared out some of his stuff from the cupboards and I had a sort through of DD's room. We ended up taking five bagfuls of stuff to the charity shop. We've also listed over a hundred things on discogs - and sold one for £6!

My stuff on eBay (19 items by the time DP had done some of his) is going well. I've got five days left and the bids total over £40 already.

Currerbell, I've got rid of most of my CDs. You can pick up hard drives quite cheaply and store them on there or iCloud will store it all virtually for £25 a year if you upload it via iTunes. Or be brave! Get rid of it all except the stuff you have listened to in the last year and then buy it as an MP3 if you find you are actually missing it.

Looks like we may be getting a student lodger in the spring for 3 months or so - so another reason to clear out extraneous clutter. I will lose the utter luxury of having my own private bathroom (which has been amazing) but it's a great opportunity to clear stuff out. I'll be moving into a tiny room and I have the monk's cell image in my mind...

I love that monk's cell imagery. In truth I like slightly more comfort, but I remember my bedroom when I was ten and we moved and before it was decorated all my wallpaper was stripped and there was hardly any of my toys in my room, and I would sit in my little bare haven reading my Mum's ancient yoga book.

It's definitely about mindset for me, and peace of mind. I tidied the towels up the other day, having moved them into a different cupboard a while ago. I pulled out a few tatty flannels and sorted and folded the hand, baby, bath towels and I thought to myself "Now I really know where my towel is". Think I might re-read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again.
I hate not knowing exactly where all my stuff is, I find it very unsettling and I intend to put a stop to that.

MinimalistMommi, I've read Buddhism for Mothers too (discovered through MN!) and it's wonderful. I wouldn't say I'm a Buddhist in the religious sense, but I'm certainly aiming for a more Buddhist mindset. I think the idea of being free from unhealthy attachments, ie the attachment to 'stuff', is what I'm trying to do - and being able to pay attention to what's important right now, rather than being distracted by clutter and shopping and guilt etc.

I've slept on the CD dilemma and realised you're all right. The fact I think of it as a 'collection' involves anxiety, as it can never be complete. I have stopped buying as many CDs in recent years, but but periodically I'll buy a few thinking I have to add to my 'collection'. Sometimes I'll hear something on 6Music and think 'oh I have to own that'. I really want to get away from that mindset and enjoy music more as an experience. Since all our CDs have been in boxes we haven't really missed them, and we don't really have anywhere to display them when our building work is done, so there's not really much point hanging onto them...

Currerbell, I really get the music thing. I have literally thousands of songs stored electronically and get anxious at the thought of not having them all. DP is an ex-professional musician and is nearly as bad.

As PP have said, the amount of virtual clutter can build up really quickly. I cannot fit all my music onto my iPod or iPad even though both are the bigger versions. I'm trying to archive music I don't listen to hence the hard drive although I recognise that's a halfway house.

Two things have helped me on the music front: I have a £10 a month budget to buy songs which usually goes on stuff I've heard on 6Music and the other is going to see more bands. Seeing bands probably works out as more expensive but the experience sticks in your mind more. We went to see The Hives a couple of weeks ago and it was just brilliant but that alone cost £50.

Ooh, I'd love to see The Hives Queen!

One of the things I want more of in my life is experiences. I'm hoping that getting out of the habit of buying things, and the time spent researching and buying things, waiting for things, unpacking things, curating and cleaning things, then feeling guilty about and decluttering those things will mean I have more time and money to do the things I'd like to do, for me and the children.

Dh usually listens to music while he's on the computer, so subscribes to Spotify for £4.99 a month - which gives him unlimited music to listen to while he works, but doesn't involve any actual CDs or downloads. Obviously not an option if you listen to music on the go via phone or mp3 player.

Also (I've been lurking for a few days picking up hints) - anyone else found that the bookbuying website doesn't want any of their books?

I have been lurking and have been inspired - I am not sure I could go quite as far as you lot - I would really struggle with reducing the clothes/bedlinen bit, and I am a hoarder of food (and get panicky if there is less than 6 tins of tomatoes in the cupboard) but I do want a less cluttered, more ordered house.

Since discovering this thread, I have sold all our CD's and a few old books and they are now packed up and ready to post to music magpie or webuybooks (thanks for the code, I will have made nearly £100!). I have subscribed to spotify, which is brilliant. Two old mobiles are on their way to Mazuma and the ebay pile has grown. I have also spent a very satisfying day (sans DD's) sorting all our filing drawers and have ditched a huge amount of paper. Oh and I have also sorted out the tuperware cupboard (it no longer falls out when you open the door).
So thanks to you lot I'm looking forward to starting the New Year feeling lighter and clearer....and determined not to let more stuff in.

Just got the girls room to tackle but will wait til they are back at school....

This thread has been great. Just reading what everyone else is doing really spurs me on.

DM went home today so I did the towels and bedding. The cupboard looks so much better.

I am going to be doing this a lot more slowly than some on here as dh is not fully on board, so it will be small amounts of things at a time, mostly so he doesn't notice, will just realise we have a tidier house.

2 bags to the charity shop, a bag awaiting freecycle collection, and a bag of stuff to be ebayed .

Well done rarely, that's an awful lot of bags with a baby and toddler to nurture as well...

And, following your advice, we have begun clearing the living room. It's an incremental thing at the moment as we have to obviously do it at night when DS isn't cruising round looking for trouble but we have filled a baf of recycling, half a box for charity, half for selling and a whole box of stuff to keep but put in other rooms. I suspect some of this stuff will eventually go when I get to the other rooms but I just didn't feel ready to part with some of it.

However, inspired by you lot, we have removed the last remnants of our CD collections - earlier in the year we trimmed out almost all of the CDs and kept just a few sentimental ones each. But now we have popped even those in the 'to sell' box. All I have left are two christmas CDs one of which is very sentimental and one is a lovely object in itself with nice artwork and lyric books etc. So those will go in my box of Christmas decorations and the CD holder will also go from our living room.

DH is currently putting DS to bed so am off to shove dinner into oven and then get on with the clearing...funny how I have begun to look forward to it.

Oh, and we sorted bedding and will sort towels tonight - then I think I can say we are fully paid up members of the minimalist journey thread

I've just read Banish Clutter Forever which has helped me focus on what I doing and highlighted a few reasons where I struggle. The author is British which means that she does n't assume we all live in massive houses with laundry rooms, dens and attics.

IShallWearMidnight You can get Spotify on your phone. A smartphone anyway.

Congrats on the clearing, blossom. It's taken a couple of weeks of snatched time. And stuff was mainly pre-sorted as is maternity/newborn stuff...and there won't be any more DC here!!

blossom I wish I could get dh on board as I am also enjoying it and it would be som much easier with him involved too.

Blackbag that book looks good.

Wow, some brilliant decluttering done here, well done!

I've listed some stuff to sell that I've been putting off, and decluttered the excess playdough cutters which I'll take to playgroup.

Just sold 155 CDs on MusicMagpie! I got £65 for the lot, which isn't that great when I think what I originally paid for them, but not too bad when I think that they were just in boxes taking up space. I really don't have the time to sell them all individually, but have kept back some higher price items to sell on Amazon. We have kept one box of CDs for sentimental reasons, but that will probably go eventually too.

Going through them all brought back so many memories of different times, eg student years. Some good memories and some bad. I think it's definitely time to move on and not be stuck in the past. This is much more than just a decluttering exercise!

Well done for keeping it up. Haven't really done any in almost a week now as was out of town for DPs grans funeral, then DP came to stay a few days with me and I didn't want to declutter then. He went home today so i will be getting back on track tomorrow and Monday for one last push for 2012!

Really enjoying the extra space already and the extra time it's allowed me to spend with my DD in her Xmas holidays, and supporting DP through his loss. Has really hit home how little of this stuff I really need at all!

Can't wait for second purge wave :)