My Story of Stuff

I used to have a lot of stuff. When I went to college my mom and I went through the process of getting me everything I needed off of the crazy list my college recommended. We spent what felt like the entire summer getting duplicates of everything I had at home plus all of the “essentials” I was told I needed.

While I have always loved decluttering and organizing, I still had a lot of stuff. And this stuff only grew over the years, especially while I was in college. By the time I was in my junior year, my closet collapsed under the sheer weight of all of my stuff. TWICE.

When my five roommates and I moved out at the end of that year, we made a pact to get rid of some stuff. And my did we get rid of a lot. My interest in minimalism grew throughout my college years, and when my best friends and I moved out our senior year, we decided enough was enough. We spent the last month of our senior year trying to savor every last minute we had together and digging through all of our accumulated stuff.

Meagan had clothes from high school shoved under her bed that made us laugh so hard we all cried. I had notes from freshmen year classes, like I was really going to read through them again.

We purged, and oh it felt sooo good. We turned our apartment inside out and started “adult” life with so much less stuff to lug around.

Most of this got donated

I still left college with too much stuff! This was only part of my room.

And I never stopped. Every move (or pretend move) I got rid of more things. When I moved into my current place, I fit all of my things in/on two vehicles, including my tiny Prius C. It was freeing.

Tidy drawers and extra space!

Through the Minsgame I really got down to where I feel good about the amount of things I own. I finally got rid of the last few things that I had been lugging around that weren’t serving a purpose anymore.

These days I put a lot of thought into the things I buy. Whether it’s the environmental impact of the item or the role it will play in my life, I really deliberate about purchases. I add them to my list and let them sit there for a while. Do I overthink the things I purchase? For sure! I don’t know anyone else who researches t-shirts for more than 10 hours only to give up and not buy any.

Do I have the least amount of things I possibly could? No. Have I hit my balance point? I think I’m close.