Maximalism to Minimalism in 2023

July 10, 2023 6:33 PM

I'm very overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have as a single person and am having wild fantasies of selling everything but the essentials and maybe putting some special irreplaceable stuff in storage. If you've done this by choice and not out of necessity, how'd you structure the purging process? If you put stuff in storage, how'd you get a good deal? Was there anything you really regretted doing? Thanks!
posted by The Adventure Begins to Home & Garden (24 answers total)

My number one tip: if you expect things will be placed in storage for a long time, look for two things...

A) climate-controlled storage
B) a storage location which is in a low-cost-of-living area, even if that means you need to hire movers

...I had things in storage for nearly a decade while I wandered the earth, and having that storage cost me $50/mo for climate-controlled space saved me quite a lot even though it meant I had to pay someone to move things to that location, and then back again to me again at the end.

Also, I recommend Iris "weather-resistant" plastic storage tubs. They've got multiple latches, and a gasket that keeps bugs out. I didn't store food (god no) but I didn't want bugs eating my illustrated manuscript from 1512.
posted by aramaic at 6:59 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

If you don't have some hard deadline -- like, you're moving on a specific date -- I suggest doing what I'm in the midst of doing: I sent a calendar alarm on my phone for every Saturday and Sunday that says "get rid of 5 things." And I do that. Could be tiny, like a piece of paper I know I can get rid of. Could be art or books or extra pots or pans or worn-out sheets or towels...anything. But the key is I get to stop after 5 items so it just doesn't stress me out. Some stuff gets trashed, others get put in a pile for Goodwill, next to my front door. And then that goes to Goodwill every few weeks.

This is a slow process but the lack of stress associated with it is really nice.

Also, for me, storage feels like a ripoff and a waste -- once it goes in, I know I'd basically forget about it and pay the bill forever.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:01 PM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]

A while ago, I think based off a Metafilter comment from someone who did this, I started doing a thing where I got rid of three things a day every day. The things could be any size, trashed or given away or used, and I had a Out box I kept around all the time so it was easy to throw something in there. Some days I focused on a particular area, other times it was random stuff I happened to see, I just had to pick three that day, which felt like a thing I could be consistent with. When I got to the point where I was really struggling to find stuff I was okay parting with, I stopped, which in my case took about three months.
posted by jameaterblues at 8:22 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I sent a calendar alarm on my phone for every Saturday and Sunday that says "get rid of 5 things." And I do that. ... But the key is I get to stop after 5 items so it just doesn't stress me out. ... This is a slow process but the lack of stress associated with it is really nice.

That's great. I do something similar to clean my art/music studio: I clean for exactly 10 minutes. That's a hard limit: I know that if I don't stick to it, I'll feel overwhelmed. But 10 minutes is something I can (usually) do.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:38 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: What if you're looking to do like a bona fide life reset? I think that's at the root of things for me. The stuff I want gone is stuff that's defined me for quite some time, stuff that I've invested a great deal of money and love into. But it doesn't serve me anymore except to be stuff on display. I don't have anyone to share in it with me. As such it weighs me down and the prospect of moving it all, as much as I love having it, is so daunting. And I am hoping to move before the end of the year. It leaves me feeling trapped.

This is not to say that I won't do the 3-5 things a day bit. I like that a LOT. But... I'm craving a big change and I already cut all my hair off months ago so that's off the list of options lol.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 10:06 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’ve culled everything twice now, going from houses full of junk down to a backpack and suitcase. The first time I was 34 — quit my job, sold the house, and went on walkabout. The second time I was retiring and moving to Mexico and there wasn’t really anything worth shipping.

In both cases when I settled down the first things back were decent clothes. Then I bought a glass and a cup and a plate and a bowl. I got some cheap furniture but a very very nice mattress. And I bought an extremely high-end computer as a treat. These and a roof to put them under are all I need to lead a pretty comfortable life — when I think about doing another purge these are the basics I dream of returning to.

If I have any regrets, it’s around how I’ve handled tools. I’m now in the process of building up my third workshop from scratch. Can’t help it. It’s an addiction.

Honestly I don’t how much progress I would have made without my chosen restrictions. When I remodeled the current place I took out every cabinet door and drawer based on my (not entirely joking) belief that if you leave crap alone in the dark it breeds. Being able/forced to see my full inventory has helped some, but the feeling that if I needed something once I might need it again later is hard to shake.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:36 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

What if you're looking to do like a bona fide life reset? I think that's at the root of things for me.

In that case just give it away or sell it all. Having sentimental attachment is an advantage when donating (things going to a good cause and all) but a pain when selling. I hate selling things anyway so I gave a friend of mine a 20% cut and told him I just wanted stuff gone. Problem solved.

By the way, I think that doing a reset like this is very important, and that everyone should do at least one in their life. Our things and places really are reflections of ourselves, and if you’re not careful they can hold you stuck in that image.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:49 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I've gone down to literally nothing but what I needed to travel (alone) for two years, nothing in storage, nothing at all. Have since got a degree, a house, a business, trimming hard to do. But only things I ever really regretted offloading was textbooks, as they go out of print and become unfindable - I find my working life to be usefully circular, in that I return to older things with new ideas, and the older books help when I still have them.
posted by unearthed at 1:48 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's become something of a cliche, but this is what marie kondo's book is about. She lays out a very specific program for getting rid of everything you don't love having and guides you through your things category by category.
posted by Summers at 3:16 AM on July 11, 2023 [14 favorites]

I did this when moving from my 3 bedroom house to my now husband's parent's house (he was a caretaker for his father). I went from 3 bedrooms to one bedroom with no room for living room or many kitchen items.

I only kept stuff I loved and I do not regret anything. I did have 8 boxes (of books, kitchen items I wanted that weren't needed at the new place and decorative/sentimental items) that I was able to store at my mom's house temporarily. I was very glad to see the books I kept when we moved into our own place, so I do agree that some storage makes sense. If you have the room, a few boxes in a closet might make more sense for you to get a minimalistic feel than getting rid of everything or having to pay for storage.

I decided to have a garage sale and neither regret it nor think it's essential. I made a bit over $300 and got to see where some of my items were going. I donated everything that didn't sell after marking it free for a couple days (and there was a lot of it still!)

I highly recommend Marie Kondo, it seems like you're already thinking about things the way her method encourages (Does this item bring me happiness?). I read the book and used this checklist to go through my stuff category by category (the idea is to pile all of your item, ex. sweaters into one place and go through all of them at the same time rather than room by room).
posted by Eyelash at 4:05 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I do “pretend I’m moving” cleaning sometimes. Pack stuff in well labeled boxes with a date and if not opened in x months, donate or destroy. If possible - I don’t re-open the box on its way out of the house.

I like to group like things - so things that could be donated / freecycled are together and I have the privilege of having some storage space in my home.

Because we live in a place with highly seasonal weather some things like clothes need longer to determine if I need them - i.e. I don’t get rid of snow boots because they haven’t been worn in 6 months - but packing away before giving up helps me not pre-regret getting rid of stuff.
posted by hilaryjade at 5:25 AM on July 11, 2023

I think what works depends on temperament. I've posted more than once about my project of getting rid of three things a day for a year, with the idea that I would get rid of more than 1000 things that way. I find I can't even remember most of what I got rid of.

After that big project, I continued to slowly get rid of things. I get very sentimentally attached to stuff, and I find that sometimes it's on the third or fourth or tenth pass that I go, well I don't really need that anymore. Getting rid of the 1000 things made it so I could "see" the rest of my stuff better, and that led to deciding I could do without more.

If you want to do a big reset and you're temperamentally suited to that, I agree that Marie Kondo is the way to go. She outlines a method for going through everything over a period of days. I think it's a good system for some people. I'm just not one of them. I need to slowly get accustomed to the idea of letting go of some of my "treasures." (I don't know if her show is still on Netflix, but if you find it, you can watch others going through that process, which can be inspirational.)

Marie Kondo says to get rid of things that don't "spark joy," which again, is going to be something that speaks to some but not others. The William Morris quote works better for me: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be beautiful or believe to be useful."

(BTW, if you're clearing things out and you don't want to waste stuff, I was surprised to find that there are plenty of people on NextDoor who will be happy to pick up your half-used cleaning products that didn't work out for one reason or another. I started by posting carpet shampoo - a shocking number of people wanted it and I gave it to someone who fosters pets - and I recently got rid of a lot of other cleaning products. Now I have to get better about not buying stuff I'm not going to use.)
posted by FencingGal at 6:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

Slightly tangential tip: One strategy that's helped me pass along items that I have some reluctance about, is to take a digital picture of the item. That gives me a sense of keeping the memories and associations alive while no longer being burdened by the physical presence.
posted by interbeing at 6:25 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seconding interbeing -- taking pictures of quite a few things that I felt were not important enough to keep but still sentimental allowed me to comfortably let them go.

Also, if you have time, finding good homes for some of the things can be very fulfilling. Chatting with your online buyers, local community, and strangers so that you can get stuff into the hands of people who will appreciate it can lead to some truly great moments. I sold a rug to a woman who was running a little late because she'd had to take her dog to the vet. Dog, you say? Would you like any of these dog items that I have no idea what to do with? Turns out she fosters dogs and could use all kinds of stuff that I wasn't sure how else to offload, like partly used up cleaning products and pre-chewed dog toys. In another instance, a woman bought a plant from my garage sale and mentioned she was going to put it in her classroom. Classroom? I have a whole box of craft supplies and an easel that you could literally just have if you want? She was over the moon! A dad came by to get a hammock, mentioned his son was autistic, and ended up with a whole bag of sensory toys and activities that needed a new home. All of these moments filled up my heart, made other people's days, and ultimately made the process of getting rid of everything fun instead of grief-filled.

Along the same lines, in-kind giving to small organizations in your area can be very cool, too. I found out my neighbor led a volunteer crew for environmental clean-up and asked if he could use the shovels, rakes, and garden tools that I was otherwise going to drop off at the thrift store. He could! It's expensive to buy lots of those, but they're exactly what his crew needs lots of. Likewise, dishes, bedding, and small furniture to the local DV program, and various tubs, hoses, tools, light bulbs, etc. to the animal shelter. You have to call and find out what is needed/wanted, then arrange to make these drop-offs, but to me this was all worth it.

Last note, if you have people coming to get things that you've sold them, literally just ask them, is there anything else you need? Often they've just moved in or they're doing a project that they think you only have one tiny part of, and when you ask, you find out there's so much more that you can sell/give away to the person right in front of you. The amount of people who named something totally random when I asked this and then were amazed when I produced it -- magic!
posted by luzdeluna at 7:43 AM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

There is so, SO much content on YouTube about embracing minimalism and various people's minimalism journeys. Most people do seem to start with the Marie Kondo and Swedish Death Cleaning books.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:56 AM on July 11, 2023

I like the "ripening box" approach - you put stuff there that you're not certain about with the intention to revisit at a set time. It's worked out for me - most of the time it's absolutely clear, on a second sweep, that most of the things can go, but I've definitely come across a few items (usually small) that I wanted to keep after all. This doesn't answer the storage question, it's just a way to approach decision-making.
posted by weirdly airport at 8:05 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I did this a year ago, but I should caveat that we had a 3-bedroom house full of shit. At that time I also had almost no executive function and waited WAY too long to start. It went pretty poorly and was wildly expensive.

The primary issue was that nobody wanted most of my shit and it needed to be thrown away, and it was far more shit than municipal trash could have handled even IF I had started 3-4 months in advance as I should have. I had to use junk haulers, in the end, to just get it done.

I don't know what to tell you about getting a good rate for storage, because I did not. But go ahead and get it by whatever good advice you get here, and go put your preciouses in there first thing. (And you will take more loads there over and over as you get rid of everything else and keep finding preciouses.) Plan to live like a monk in the meantime, otherwise you'll keep thinking "oh but I need this for now". Need or don't need, those are the options.

If I ever have to do this again, this will be the order of operations
1) put the preciouses in storage (along with keeper stuff that will temporarily be in the way, if possible - winter clothes, sports equipment, etc)
2) identify the stuff you really do need for daily living
3) start identifying actual trash and getting it gone in batches
4) Any large space-occupying furniture you want to get rid of, get it out first via Marketplace, BuySellTrade, or BuyNothing groups first to get back the floorspace for sorting
5) if you're going to do a garage sale, identify those items next and get them compartmentalized in your living space, staged as much as possible to easily get outside. If you recognize most of it is not going to be very sellable, or want to offload anything left after a garage sale via BuyNothing, I had a lot of success just piling stuff outside and posting it on the group like "come and get it, here's the address, trash hauler is coming at 6pm so do it before then"
6) Keep in mind that the admin on individual sales, garage sales, and individual BuyNothing gifts is incredibly time-consuming

Now that it is over and the trauma has been processed, I have very very few regrets about what I got rid of. (Regrets about the process? mhmm.) Every once in a while I panic and grab my husband and say "did we get the X????" and we did, because while I was spinning my wheels in inefficiency dealing with my Stuff he was quietly gathering up all the preciouses. Like, there's some expensive kitchen shit I gave or threw away instead of getting to the storage unit, but those regrets are entirely monetary. There is an occasional pang for something I quite liked, but when we did this process we moved out and now live in short-term rentals and sublets around the country with only what we can shove into a van (and I still have too much Stuff), so the more daily-use stuff that I loved is with me.

If you're not doing this to actually move out, though, it's really easy to backslide into status quo, so I recommend packing up your "keepers" as if you were about to move them, and decide for yourself how many standard boxes of stuff you want to keep or set as an upper level.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:22 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I try to declutter a laundry basket (or more) of stuff every weekend. Either donating to thrift shops, or passing on to friends with younger kids. It's shocking how much stuff there is in my life and I want it all gone. I also desperately want to hold on to it, so there you go. But typically I don't miss it when it leaves!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I followed the Marie Kondo book in 2016, and I recommend it as a life reset. I feel like the series on Netflix didn’t cover the method very well, but the manga version does, if that seems easier. I think the biggest thing I took away was that I owned a lot of stuff that I didn’t like and that it made me feel bad to look at. I also think it was beneficial to do it as one big project, because it makes me think twice about buying things I’m not sure about after seeing the amount of stuff I got rid of - I do more borrowing things or figuring out how to use what I have.

I also still fold my underwear, which I thought was ridiculous and tried on a whim.
posted by momus_window at 8:20 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

What Tell Me No Lies said: a charity store with a drive-thru is your friend. The prospect of selling stuff - writing blurbs, taking pics, deciding on a prices, posting online, dealing with sometimes multiple buyers (some of whom will jerk you around) - does not align with making this less daunting. Piling stuff in your trunk and back seat, dropping it off at the charity store, and feeling good that someone (and the charity) is going to benefit from your gains is the best deal in town: what you potentially lose in $'s, you gain in getting it done.

When I got my storage unit I read all the customer reviews: loads of places had complaints from customers about break-ins or rats eating their stuff, and how they had no recourse after the fact, so I wound up paying a little more for a climate controlled place with good security and no online complaints (I actually made a shortlist and then drove to each one to check them out - only the one I wound up with didn't sketch me out and gave me a sense of security (and cleanliness)).
posted by my log does not judge at 7:21 AM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

I grew up one place, then went to college far away -- and settled there. So most of my "stuff" from my youth is gone after my parents sold my childhood house and I basically just threw out everything that I had left there.

I recognize that I have an outsize attachment to objects that, with some reflection, aren't that important...but it takes me time to come to this realization! And if someone is pressuring me to throw things away, then I reflexively -- unthinkingly -- clutch them even tighter.

So take time to look at your stuff more than once, and be OK if you're not ready to pitch things. When you come back to it later, you may be ready to let it go.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:33 AM on July 12, 2023

I agree with others that the fundamentals of the Kondo approach are the way to go, by which I mean category by category (rather than room by room), easy to hard, and pick out what you want to keep (so default is to chuck it). Then in terms of getting rid of the stuff, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. If you can afford to, just donate anything donatable and bin the rest.

I haven't done it for furniture but I would declutter the 'stuff' first, then identify the pieces you are keeping and sell the rest. Anything that doesn't sell by a specific date, donate or chuck.

It's all easier if you cut down on the amount you buy at the same time.
posted by plonkee at 11:37 AM on July 12, 2023

Possibly instead of Marie Kondo, you may want the Swedish Death Cleaning philosophy, for which there's a ton of videos/books/media out there in various depths.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:44 AM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Selling stuff online takes a lot of work and there are SO MANY FLAKEY PEOPLE, so track your hours and make sure it's an effective use of your time.
I find small things sell best when portioned into "lots" and listed for $19, $29, or $39.
Like - a lot of 10 books for $19 might sell, but selling a single book for $2 or $5 is a huge waste of time.
Personally I try to avoid selling anything for under $19 because it just takes forever and yields too little.
Also, join special-interest groups in your neighbourhood so you can sell to people who actually want that item, and live close enough to get it. ("where are you located" "oh that's too far" is an annoying part of selling online!)
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:38 PM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]