It seems like every time I travel, I come home committed to win my war on Stuff. This time was no different. I lived out of a single carry-on bag while vacationing in Belize last week, and even that felt luxurious. Now I’ve returned to a house packed with doodads and gewgaws, knick-knacks and baubles.
The more I purge Stuff from my life, the more I travel, and the more I see (and read) about how little others need to get by, the stronger my conviction to reduce what I own, as well. I’m in awe of my friend Leo from Zen Habits, for instance. At his secondary blog, mnmlist, Leo has been chronicling his attempt to reduce the number of thing he owns. At first, this was his 100 Things Challenge (he wanted to own just 100 personal items). Recently, he’s upped the ante. It’s now a 50 Things Challenge. Wow.
I’m not ready to go to this extreme — not even close. But I am beginning to wonder: How many t-shirts does one man need? How many jackets? How many books? And how in the heck did I end up with more than ten pairs of shoes? Ridiculous! How much Stuff does one man really need?
Small steps
Over the past three years, I’ve made great strides in ridding my life of Stuff. I’ve sold or given away thousands of books (yes, thousands). I’ve purged a garage full of computer parts. I’ve managed to turn off the rationalization switch in my brain and learned to simply donate my Stuff to charity instead of saving it for “someday”. And about a year ago, I started my slow-motion clothes purge.
Based on a Get Rich Slowly reader suggestion, I moved all of my sweaters and button-down shirts to an unused closet. For the past several months, I’ve gradually pulled one shirt and then another into my regular closet as I actually wear them. Unworn shirts and sweaters stay in their temporary holding space. At the end of this process (which should be in June), all of the shirts I’ve worn in the past year will be in one closet, and the Stuff I don’t wear will be purged.
Do you know how many different shirts I’ve worn over the past nine months? I just went upstairs to count. My “good” closet contains 17 button-down shirts and three sweaters. My closet of unused clothes contains 30 shirts (two of which haven’t even been taken out of their packaging) and 11 sweaters.
Sometimes I think I’m the village idiot. I don’t even wear two-thirds of my wardrobe? It’s like I’m just throwing my money away. But rather than beat myself up over this, I can use the info going forward.
For example, Kris and I made a trip to REI before leaving for Belize. I fell in love with one shirt, but I almost didn’t buy it after looking at the price tag. $40? For a shirt? Get real! I rarely spend more than $20. But then I realized: If I really love the shirt and it’ll live in my “good” closet, then spending $40 is much better than buying two cheap shirts I never wear. I bought the REI shirt in two colors (rust and aqua), and I’m glad I did. (But maybe I should get rid of two other shirts from my “good” closet to make up for this.)
I’ve begun to realize it’ll take a few more years to finally get rid of the worst of my Stuff. It took me two decades to acquire these things; it’ll take a bit of time to unload it. But how will I know when I’m finished? How much Stuff does one man need?
The magic of thinking small
It was interesting to see how small the average homes were in Belize and Guatemala. In the U.S., the average new home was 2349 square feet in 2004 (up from 1695 square feet in 1974). In Central America, homes seemed to be maybe 600 or 700 square feet (here’s a typical example).
Seeing these small homes made we think: What would I choose to own if my space were limited? Could I really rationalize my comic book collection? Forty-seven button-down shirts and fourteen sweaters? Two bicycles? My burgeoning pile of shoes? Which Stuff is worth owning, and which is not? And if it’s not worth owning in a small home, why is it worth owning in a large home?
I don’t know the answer to these questions; I’ll continue to puzzle them out.
This weekend, one of our neighbors held a yard sale. Kris and I went across the street to chat. “Wow,” Kris said. “It looks like you’re selling everything.” She scooped up the neighbor’s canning jars.
“In a way, I am,” our neighbor said. “I’m moving into a smaller place, and I have a couple of weeks before I have to be out of this one. I’ve already moved everything I want to keep, and I’m selling everything else.”
“That’s awesome,” I said. “I wish I could do that.”
But who says I can’t? Why can’t I pretend that I’m moving into a smaller place? If I did, what would I keep? What is it I really value? How much Stuff does one man really need?
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I recommend the book “Material World,” but I don’t think it’s still in print; maybe you can find it at the library. A photographer went to dozens of different countries and, in each, found a “typical” family and took a picture of them with all their “stuff.” Naturally the richer the country (e.g., USA & Western Europe), the more stuff the people had. They also interviewed the families about their stuff: what their most valued possessions were, and what they wanted. In the poorer countries, they wanted things like a bicycle that wasn’t broken. Another thing that was interesting about that book was info on the percentage of income people spent on food. In the poorer countries it was often over 90%. Here in the USA our biggest expense is housing, not food. Interesting.
I have a problem getting rid of clothes that are a size or 2 too small. I keep thinking that some day I’ll lose the weight. Do others have this problem?
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Came over from Trent at TSD and ended up “homesick” for Belize :>) – I spent about a week there during a month long trip for which I packed one large backpack and one small backpack. Good times. Anyway, I linked to this on my weekly roundup, post is under my name. I’ve been doing a 40 bags in 40 days declutter challenge for Lent and have realized that I’m past 40 and have barely felt a pinch. Guess I need to KEEP GOING!
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I am a European leaving in the US for 6 months only. I sometimes watch home improvements shows on HGTV and in most cases I am strucked by several points:
* people seem to never have enough (“It is a pity they don’t have 2 ovens.” What for?) ;
* people have so many clothes (“I am not sure this closet will fit both our clothes and shoes.”).
For the first point I think that most Americans are crazy about having always the top-of-the-range stuff that will be old-fashioned in just a few years.
For the second point it might be only me (10 T-shirts and 10 shirts is all I have and need).
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For those asking where books can be sold: there are 2 places online which buy books (and pay for the shipping cost). One is cash4books.net, which is McKenzie Books in Beaverton, Oregon. (If you live nearby, you can walk your books in, and they pay you a little extra for doing so.) The other is powells.com, which is Powells Books in Portland, Oregon (look for the “sell us your books” tab and choose the online option). For any given set of books, try both cash4books.net and powells.com, as they have different tastes and offer different prices. If you live near a Half Price Books (you can find their locations at halfpricebooks.com/find_a_store.html), they often offer good prices when selling to them in person, and they purchase on the spot after a short wait (15 minutes or so, in my experience). For those books which you can’t sell, please do consider giving them to any library; if they can’t add the books to their own collection, they often can offfer them at their own sale (most libraries have either ongoing or periodic sales) — plus it’s a charitable donation (ask for a receipt if the library doesn’t mention it), so if you itemize it may help on your tax return. Finally, paperbackswap.com is a great, low-cost way to give your books to others and get books you want yourself: it’s like giving presents to others and getting presents in return, and really a lot of fun.
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I liked this article, I’ve read your past articles on conquering your war on stuff. I can’t really relate to your attachment to stuff because
I don’t get sentimental about stuff, to me stuff is just stuff.
Growing up with parents who liked to hold on to things, but they weren’t excessive hoarders, still they are the type of people who keep things for months and even years “just in case”-I just have this aversion to not keeping things I don’t need. I constantly throw things out at the end of the month if I don’t use them.
IMO you are more than your stuff, you’re an entire human being that isn’t defined by your job, or by your stuff. In the end you can’t take it with you, all we have is our character, experiences, our journey, and our friendships with family and friends.
I hope you continue to get better at not letting stuff rule you and I really do mean that. No one should be ruled by stuff. In reality, most of us don’t need that much stuff. We can get by on less.
I’m 27 but it seems to me that many people work so hard for stuff and for the most part, they don’t really end up using most of their stuff, or they lose interest and then they end up storing it in a storage they pay for, garage, or some other place.
Think of how much time and money we could have if we didn’t spend it on so much stuff, we could retire early, pursue hobbies that are more fulfilling if we as Americans weren’t busy on the pursuit of stuff. Anyway, don’t give up J.D.-you sound like a very nice person, and you are more than your stuff.
Good luck to you =)
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Hi, there’s a bad link “vacationing in Belize”.
An extra h to http..
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