The Completion of the Purge

I previously wrote about my quest to minimize my life by purging a lot of my material goods and I have realized that in the summer I just barely scraped the surface. I'm moving to a new city this weekend for a great job opportunity and a move is a great way to force yourself to purge. So I have finally completed the great purge of 2013 that I first embarked on in the summer. Here's the breakdown:

Here is some visual evidence of what I was up against in the context of all the stuff I had stored in my parent's basement:

As you can see, it was a mismatch of boxes, furniture and bags. It was quite the task: that's for sure! I started by making notes that read 'donate', 'garage sale/sell', 'keep/store', 'keep/move' and 'garbage/recycle'. I then just began going through everything and matching it to the corresponding note and sorting everything into piles. I consolidated a lot of the stuff I wanted to keep to either move or store in a few plastic boxes instead of having all sorts of random bags and whatnot hanging around. It took me a few days and a little help from my friends but I did it! 

What I learned in doing this purge:
- Sometimes it's hard to part with material possessions because of the perceived value and/or emotional attachment associated with these items;
- It definitely helps to have an unbiased second or third party to ground you in reality when trying to decide whether to part with certain items;
- In the end it's just stuff and it ultimately doesn't make me a more happy person nor defines who I am as a person or my worth to society;
- It feels really great to purge myself of a lot of the stuff that has been weighing me down physically and emotionally for many years.
- I've spent a lot of money over in the years in accumulating all this stuff and sometimes spending money I didn't have;
- There are many areas in my life that I can look to for becoming more minimalist;
- Now that I've purged the best way to continue in my minimalism quest is prevention;
- The best form of minimalism is to appreciate and use all the possessions I already have as well as loving and taking care of them.

Here is my 'after' picture of all my stuff:

The top left picture is the stuff to move, the top right picture is stuff in storage in my parent's basement, the bottom left picture is a couple pieces of furniture to move and the bottom right picture is the stuff to sell, donate or throughout. As you can see, it's a lot more manageable and organized.

I'm personally feeling much lighter after doing this purge and I hope it inspires others to do the same. It took a move to motivate me to get my butt in gear for my purge but you don't need an excuse: you can purge at any time. If you're thinking about doing a purge in the near future here is a handy chart, that my sister found and sent me, that may help you sort through the chaos:

Good luck with your purge and please share what worked, what didn't work and what/who helped you in your journey to minimizing your life. As always here's to your uncommonly wealthy life! :)

Fall Updates

In honour of the changing of the seasons and this beautiful Fall day here is an update on the status of my great summer purge of 2013. It was the summer of 2013 and I engaged on a rather ambitious summer project to become more of a minimalist. I set myself some lofty goals and I didn't get to every one of them because some were much bigger jobs than I originally thought; however, I did achieve a lot that I'm very proud of. I put a dent in my stuff and I took that all important first step and made some great strides towards living a more minimalist life.

Firstly, I tackled my closet with help from a friend and purged 170 pieces of clothing and I stuck to not shopping throughout the summer. Now with the new season I've found myself doing a bit of shopping again but I also know that another purge is due in order to organize my closet for a new season. I'm setting myself a new goal of shorting through my fall and winter wardrobe and then figuring out how to shop based on what pieces I already have and what pieces I need in order to have coordinating outfits that I'll actually wear. In terms of purging my accessories, I did pick out the ones that I really like and enjoy and wear the most often and I got rid of a lot of old and out of style ones.

The other big purge job I did was my books. I'm most proud of this because it was long overdue and I feel so much better getting rid of that access weight I've been carrying around with me for way too long. My books were originally on several different bookshelves throughout my parents house and I didn't know which books I had read or still needed to read. I also had way too many out of date texts books just hanging around and collecting dust and that I hadn't looked at since University (over 5 years ago!). So I sorted my books into the following categories: read & keep, donate/sell, and to read. I also sorted through the books I had that I needed to return to various friends and tried to do so as much as feasibly possible. I put all my books I was going to keep onto one bookshelf and organized them according to read, to-read, self-help, cookbooks and other.

The finished beautiful masterpiece of my bookshelf! :)

In the case of my textbooks I was originally planning on just throwing them out because they are all way out of date and who wants/needs them at this point? But then I found out that a cousin of mine has been collecting old texts books at garage sales and re-selling them on amazon to all sorts of people, like students and collectors. So obviously I thought that instead of wasting these books and having them end up in a garage pile, I thought I would at least try my hand at the amazon seller world and see what came of it. So far I have sold 2 textbooks for $50 each, which is awesome considering I didn't have that money beforehand and now the books are going to a good home, at least I hope.

My pile of textbooks just waiting for a happy home to take them in. 

Now in terms of the other challenges of organizing all my stored stuff in my parents basement and purging my sticker/paper collection, I haven't quite got to that yet. They're very big jobs that will become part of a new Fall challenge for myself. The sticker/paper collection is a tough one because of the sentimental connection I have to it because I bought a lot of it as emotional crutches when I was going through a hard time. I guess having to go through and purge the stickers and paper represents in my head having to face that dark time in my past, but maybe it'll also help me cleanse and heal those old wounds? I think it is something I still must do.

My new Fall challenge to myself includes organizing and purging my winter clothes, my stored stuff at my parents house and my sticker and paper collection as well as continue to sell my textbooks on amazon. As always, here's to your uncommonly wealthy life! :)