The Purge

Since my realization that I have too much stuff, I have begun going through everything and starting to sell things. It's quite a liberating process.

It's also horribly overwhelming most of the time.

Some days I have all the energy in the world until I walk up to a stack of boxes... then all my enthusiasm falls flat because I'm staring down a mountain of things and knowing I can't just magically make them disappear in that moment. Sure... I could trash them, but that would just add to the landfill problem. I could donate them, but my savings is uncomfortably close to nothing and much of what I have is worth a decent amount of money.

I'm left with needing to take the time to sell things... and believe me, it is work! I have to organize it, decide what should go on Ebay or Craigslist, or what will be yardsale fare and ultimately the leftovers will go to auction to sell as box lots. Then I have to toss things that aren't sellable in any of those manners, or donate some of it. I've also been working on scraping metal stuff that I have so that I'll get some money for it and the items will be recycled.

All in all, I feel I have a pretty solid plan for having 80% of my posessions gone in a year and (hopefully) several thousand dollars back in the bank. (that includes selling 2 cars). I'm trying to undo as much of the damage as possible, damage I myself caused with my reckless spending through my teens and 20's.

My favorite part of all this is... I've barely spent any money on stuff in the last few months. In fact, I can sit here and list every single item I bought, becuase there are so few that they all stick in my mind... a case that holds 375 cds/dvds so that I could reduce the amount of space that collection takes up, a pair of leggings to wear under skirts in the winter, a nice zippered daytimer that both has the calendar and pouches for me to keep important documents all in once place, packaging supplies for the stuff I'm shipping, three paint brushes and a tube of paint, and three pairs of earrings (that were buy 2 get 1 free).

Just about everything I bought had a very specific purpose and was filling an actual need. The main exception is the leggings and the earrings, I could have gotten by without either and in the case of the earrings I certainly didn't need them at all. For a single purchase that served no other purpose than being pretty in two months time...I'm pleased. You don't want to know what I was buying in two months time before June... I would hazard a guess at ten times as many items.

Overall I'm doing well with this rearrangement, but it takes time and it's hard for me to remain patient. One day at a time...