I want to get rid of (via donations, craigslist, ebay, freecycle, etc) at least 100 things before moving day. On one hand the number sounds kinda high, but on the other hand, I know there are at least 100 things in our house that we never use, need, or should spend time and effort moving. And I actually plan to keep track, writing all 100 items down on a piece of paper in list form. Why? Because I’m weird like that.
To kick things off I went through my shoes (pun intended). Amazingly, I realized that I hadn’t worn a good amount of them since leaving NYC and moving to Richmond 4+ years ago. How embarrassing.
I ended up with ten pairs of shoes in my toss/Goodwill/ebay pile. Not too bad considering I had just 18 in my keep pile (although my definite-keeper Puma sneakers were out in the sunroom for a grand total of 19). That means I’m ready to say “hasta la vista” (in my best Schwarzenegger accent) to over a third of all the shoes that I own.
Sidenote:The blue-gray bedroom wall looks so green in this picture- clearly I still have a lot to learn about the new camera.
So although that’s actually 20 things I’m getting rid of (since there are two shoes per pair) I’m counting the shoe purge as ten items just to be fair. Now to find 90 more things to get gone. Somebody wish me luck. And stay tuned for an update to see if I’m able to reach my weird little goal…
Is anyone else out there cutting the fat at home and pairing things down in a major way? Let’s commiserate.
Kat says
Getting married has definately motivated me to purge, purge, purge. Who needs to drag all that junk into a marriage? :)
Suzie @ cupcake monkey says
Purging (of the cleaning variety) is my favorite thing to at home when cleaning! You can totally hit that 100 goal!!
Sometimes I just grab a trash bag and a donate bag and wander around the house pulling things we no longer have use for.
Elizabeth says
Totally inspired! We’re getting ready to add another baby to our family in the spring and need to convert the last of our three bedrooms from an office/guestroom to the nursery. I love the idea of setting a goal of 100 things. We already write lists of our items we donate to Goodwill for tax purposes, so I may just print out a numbered sheet and use that to kickstart the process. Thanks for the great idea!
TG says
Even though I am not moving, that is an excellent idea to do just anyway. Stuff accumulates.
Jenn V. says
I am TOTALLY in a purge mood. We live in a small-ish apartment (in the 800 square foot range) and have a three year old…that’s a tremendous amount of stuff. Throw in the fact that I work from home and take care of the kid all day, means that 2 of us spend 90% of our time here. That’s a double-edged sword; on the one hand, since you are around it all the time you get used to all the stuff, on the other hand, it makes you dread holidays and birthdays and the influx of stuff. My husband and I have come to the conclusion that we’re going to be in this apartment for at the very least another year, though, so it’s time to make this spot work for us. That means Toss, Toss, Toss! Wish me luck.
Ami @ beyondpeasandcarrots says
I moved across the province a few years ago and I sold everything; except my books, cds, some clothes and a couple kitchen items before I left. It was so freeing, packing up and moving somewhere new knowing I was really, truly starting over. It is the best way to move. Not only do you not have as much to lug around, you get to totally redecorate AND if you sell your old stuff you can make some good money!
Briel K. says
I think that’s an awesome goal! I have done some purging of stuff in the past six months or so but I still have A LOT to get rid of. I just moved and it really shows you how much stuff a person can accumulate that they don’t need and never use!
Sarah says
AWESOME IDEA!
I trimmed the fat in a different way recently! Since we all tend to over spend this time of year I trimmed the fat wherever I could as we headed into this season. Got a new quote on my auto insurance, trimmed up the cell phone and cable plans, and even tho it sounds funny cut back the Starbucks budget :) Saved a couple hundred bucks a month! Not too shabby!
Happy trimming!
Sarah
bdaiss says
Yes, definitely paring down! I have a HUGE pile in the garage. We’re done with the baby thing, so there’s a ton moving out the door as our baby girl graduates to the next stage. (She turned one a few weeks ago.)
What size shoe do you wear? Because I’d totally take a few of those pairs off your hands. : )
YoungHouseLove says
Hey bdaiss,
I’m all over the place between 5 and 6.5 (my feet permanently changed sizes when I was prego). So weird!
xo,
s
Maggie Rose says
I love getting rid of clutter (especially before a move). My bf thinks it’s borderline weird how much I love to toss stuff into a box for Goodwill, but it’s so liberating!
My go-to site for decluttering info is unclutterer.com – there are articles specifically about moving, and check the forum as well for other tips. Some of the folks on there are hard-core minimalists, but there is something for everyone!
K says
I’ve been getting rid of things like crazy. There is a local resale shop that I have been taking a ton of stuff to as a donation. I have two small tubs of “garage sale” items in storage for next summer’s garage sale and huge pile of recyclables. I can’t wait to get it out of my house!
Flynn says
This is also the quickest path to sanity when you get those “it’s HOW many days ’til moving?!?” moments. I found it helped me to pick a number and stick with it, too. (Any number at all; you just want a stopping point.) I’d walk around the house until I’d put 23 (my random #) things I didn’t want to move with me in my box. I swear I could feel my pulse rate begin to ease when I did so. Good luck!
Taylor says
I moved from NYC to San Diego a month ago and since I was shipping everything (sold my furniture) the cost of a ton of boxes going USPS across the country forced me to do a major purge.
It was rough at first but in the end, it felt good to donate three HUGE boxes, I made a little cash from some CraigList sales, and now I can’t think of one thing I wish I still had … though I did get immediately to work filling my apartment with new things. There’s just so much more space outside of NYC!!
Good luck!!
heather s. says
You’ll find it incredibly easy to get rid of more than 100 items. I recently got rid of a LOT of stuff and counted entire stacks of tshirts as 1 item, a stack of magazines as 1 item, and so on even though there were way more items than 1 in each stack.
Stephanie Phillips says
Anna, that hanger idea is genius! Instead of trying to remember a shirt has been worn and then finding some reason to justify keeping said item… Genius.
I try to do this to some degree, but often fail. My design style involves more clutter than yours (is that even a style?) so I have more out on display. But I often go through clothes and shoes, junk drawers, etc. My biggest obstacle, though, is my husband. He won’t let me throw ANYTHING away! ANYTHING!! (“NO! That’s a picture of my neighbor’s cat! I must keep it!”)
You and John seem to be on the same page here. How would you handle it if you disagreed on items?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Stephanie,
Hmm, I don’t know if I’d marry him. Haha. I’m kidding of course, but a huge part of me is my neurotic “everything in it’s place” sensibility, so it would make me crazy if John was trying to keep pictures of the neighbor’s cat. Maybe you can barter in a way that would be of interest to him? For example convince your man that you’ll see that movie he wants to see if he gets rid of one bag or stuff? Or tell him you’ll buy him that CD he’s loving as a reward for pairing things down a bit? I dunno. I’m kind of a lousy bargainer. I always cave. Thank goodness John is kind of a clean-freak too in the end.
xo,
s
Soles4Souls says
Hey Sherry,
My fiance is a frequent reader of your blog & told me about your post today. I wanted to let you know about an organization I work for, Soles4Souls, & ask if we could partner with you to donate the shoes that you don’t sell on ebay to women around the world who have never owned a pair? In short, we collect shoes from businesses, organizations, & individuals and distribute them to the 1.5 billion people around the world without a pair.
We actually have a retailer in Richmond that you can drop them off at!! If you’re interested, you can email me & I will gladly give you the details. Your 10 pairs would changes 10 lives!
Thanks!
Jeremy
[email protected]
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much for the info Jeremy! We’ll definitely get more info from you!
xo,
s
Rhiannon says
I like to clean out the house once a month. I start with easy things like magazines I’ve already read, books I don’t plan to read again. Then I try to take at least two things from every closet or cabinet. This includes our bedroom clothes closet, the linen closet, the bathroom cabinets and kitchen cabinets and two things from the garage. It took a while to get purging down to an art, but it feels so good to get rid of things. And I have yet to miss any of them!
Suzanne says
I think it IS semi-crazy! Didn’t you do a purge before putting house up for sale? 100 items might not be much for lots of people, but you guys have never been the type to have lots of stuff. Good Luck! (and I bet you’re going to be kicking yourself for not considering those shoes as 20!)
steph says
T-shirts!!!! I don’t know how we accumulate so many, but hopefully when we move, we’ll only be taking about 30 each! Which, yes, that is still a lot, but I don’t want to do laundry every day either!
Chicago Cuisine Critique says
I really love this idea! :)
michele says
i’m sure this has been mentioned already, but does your camera have the ability to use a different white balance? if so, are you switching between daylight, incandescent, etc., depending on your ambient light? that makes all the difference in the world!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Michele,
Yes it does- and I don’t pay attention to that feature enough. Thanks for the suggestion!
xo,
s
kami says
i have been purging right along with apartment therapy’s 20/20 home cure right now. we’re on day 18. sadly, i also decided to sell my furniture at the same time. so while my belongings are becoming fewer and fewer, so are the places that i was storing them. it’s been an adventure but it’ll all be worth it when i’m finished. less really is more.
Kate says
What a great idea… I am going to follow along with you and see if I can get rid of 100 things before Jan 1st!
Sugar Cookie says
My husband and I are closing on our house in less than two weeks and have so much to go through! We moved from LA to Oklahoma early last summer, so most of our possessions are still packed away. (We decided to live in a furnished apartment until we could afford a home. Since that was temporary, I decided to leave most everything packed. Now, 18 months later, I’m not sure if that was the best idea!) We’re both from Oklahoma originally, but haven’t lived here for nearly a decade, so we also have tons of old stuff at our parents’ houses as well. I would resolve to also get rid of 100 thing, but I think that would be low-balling! If I end up keeping track of how many items I really get rid of, I may have to let you know!! Good luck with your goal and moving!
J says
I am currently collecting things to do a garage sale. I usually donate, but with all my current projects I have quite a bit to get rid of. Good lucky finding your 100.
Katie says
We just bought and moved into a new house. For the 3 weeks we had before moving into the house I went through our old one and threw out SO MUCH stuff! It made me feel amazing! But I honestly think I moved a bunch of things to our new house that I’ll end up getting rid of too.
amyks says
Good Luck to you and have fun! When we moved I donated over 25 bags/boxes of clothes, linens, dishware, kids’ toys, holiday decor, furniture, knick knacks etc. It was pretty crazy, I couldn’t believe how much “junk” I had been holding onto. It felt so good to purge, and now that we are in the new place, I am still getting rid of stuff that I thought I needed to bring with me. I’m trying hard to become a minimalist, but it is so hard with 3 kids who treasure and collect every scrap of paper, and can’t part with any toy.
Lindsay says
Might you consider offering/selling, giving any items to your readers? Might be fun to have a piece of yhl to take home since your readers love your current home so much!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Lindsay,
We thought about it, but we didn’t really know how to do it. Maybe we’ll share links to our ebay listings or something…
xo,
s
Ashley says
We are currently in the midst of working out projects/storage solutions right now, and I am purging like mad. For us, it was finding out we were adding a baby to the mix that motivated us to finally start treating our house like a home instead of a holding pattern.
KB says
The fact that you had only 29 pairs of shoes to begin with, astounds me. You are a better person than I am. I refuse to count my pairs….for fear that it will be close to my weight. =/
Amy Butler says
When we moved last year I spent THREE WEEKS PACKING!
Although it wouldn’t have taken that long to move from one apartment to another if I hadn’t done a HUGE declutter/purge of all of the things my husband and I own.
and I organized (with labeled containers!) everything we kept that needed to be in containers.
result – all the “stuff” we ended up keeping took 3 hours to move in to our new apartment in our new city!! (ok, the furniture took a bit longer to get it placed and pictures hung!)
Moving is the PERFECT time to get things in order!
you can do it!
Tracy Lee says
I just purged so much stuff because we just moved out of our old house, about 2 dumpsters full, and we’re not even done yet! I haven’t tackled the kids stuff yet! (they have so many toys it’s just ridiculous!)
I moved every 6 months growing up, so I never accumulated piles of stuff, but dang, having kids sure changed that!
Andrea says
We recently emptied the entire contents of our guest room so we could move my stepdaughter into that room as a birthday surprise… which equals a giant mess of stuff with no home. I’m itching to purge it all. There’s nothing like the feeling of getting rid of unused junk! Plus it really makes me think twice about what I buy in the first place. Good luck with your other 90! :)
Teresa says
Haha…”Why? Because I’m weird like that.” I feel ya…we’re weird just like you…
Jenn says
I’m actually embarrassed to admit this (yeah right, who am I kidding! No shame! haha) but I am a giant packrat! Since college i’ve managed to move stuff a total of 5 times that I had no real intention of ever using again. Oh yeah, that bad!
Maybe I should make a similar goal.. hmm… though at this rate it should probably be 200 things by Xmas!
xoXOxo
Jenn L @ Peas & Crayons
Carr says
In response to getting read of books not read. One of my favorite sites is paperbackswap.com! You pay to mail out the book you don’t want anymore when it is requested, and receive 1 “credit” for each book you send out. Then you request a book that you would like to read for 1 “credit” each. So you’re only paying to mail out your books and won’t have to stock pile all of your books!
Laura says
Good for you guys! It will be less to have to pack up and move! I’m also getting rid of a lot of stuff!
Angie says
A size 5? Once again, I’m out of luck. Everyone told me my feet would get bigger with my pregnancy, but they didn’t. Good thing for me since I had so many cute shoes!
When you go to get rid of baby items you don’t want to keep, please consider either consignment shops (I make a TON of money reselling my 4 year olds clothes- enough to buy the next seasons wardrobe at least.) or womens shelters in your area. If the item isn’t in good enough shape to sell, it’s still usable, and womens shelters always need those items.
Val says
If I got rid of ten pairs of shoes in one fell swoop, my husband would probably go into shock. To say nothing of what would happen to me.
JS says
An entire basement full of stuff! When my mom died 3 years ago, I couldn’t bear to let my step-dad get rid of anything without the chance for me to see it and bid it farewell. And she was on the verge of being a hoarder. She had clothes that I had gotten rid of 10 years before! They had a 4 car garage with barely room for 2 cars, plus a basement and many closets full of *stuff*. So when he got remarried a year later, I brought ALL of the stuff she had to my house and put it in our basement. 2 years later, I’ve not gone through much and gotten rid of less. We’re planning on moving if the market is right (HA!) or refinishing the basement if we get brave (ha!), so that stuff has to GO!!
Elizabeth says
It’s good that you’re keeping a list. I do that whenever I donate items to charity…helps with the taxes to have an itemized list to support the claimed deduction.
Joy says
You have motivated me. I am going to get rid of 100 things too and make a list to keep me honest! :)
Amanda says
I’m cleaning out at the moment as well, but not due to a move, just because I have too much stuff!!!!
I got rid of 4 big black garbage bags full of clothes, and 4 big boxes (double the black bags) recently, and it feels so good!! Sure I get confused when looking for things I thought I threw out, but it’s so much nicer to have a clean and uncluttered home!
Kali says
I LOVE a good purge. I do it so much around the house I get sad when I have nothing to sort through. I just believe two people should not have nor should they need so much stuff! I’m off to find more stuff I can get rid of… you’ve inspired me!
crystal says
We just emptied out the basement so we could finish it into a kid play area. We took two large pick up trucks full out of it- one to the dump and the other to goodwill. Well over 100 things, including lots of big things like a dinning room table set, tons of chairs, home decor that we were not using and all the boxes that our stuff comes in that we seem to always save. The only thing down there we kept was my sewing machine and the christmas decor. It felt great and now we have an empty space to start drywalling tomorrow.
Janell Beals says
This is the very reason I am very fond of moving…seriously. Now that we haven’t moved in two years clutter is appearing for the first time, I don’t typically stay this long in a house.
Janell
Maggi says
I am an anti-hoarder. I would like to move into one of those Mini-houses that are only 80sq ft.
But I have a one year old boy and babies have a lot of STUFF…even though its small it accumulates.
Krystle says
I did basically the same thing when I moved from NJ to TN. Anything that I knew I didn’t want to keep or move got tossed or donated! I’ll probably do it again when we eventually buy a house! I didn’t keep count of the things I got rid of but I don’t think your goal is crazy at all!! Good luck =)
Lara says
Oh my – such a great idea! I’ve been getting rid of little bits here and there, and I should just give myself a number goal – that will work so much better!
Michelle says
Getting rid of things is SO cathartic!
Also…the Pioneer Woman does giveaways of things from her closet/home that she’s never going to wear/use again. Would you consider doing that? I spied some super cute silver strappy sandals in that pile and I’m sure a lot of us would loveee to get our hands on some rejected YHL home decor! If it’s a creepy idea, don’t worry about it, but it’s a thought!
Here’s an example of what I mean:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeandgarden/2010/11/cleaning-out-my-closet-item-14/
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Michelle,
We actually thought that would be fun but we weren’t sure how to organize it. Maybe we’ll link to our ebay listings or something.
xo,
s