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! :)

Challenge Accepted!

Here I am 2 weeks after my initial blog post and that first post was a long time in the making because of my fear surrounding putting myself out there in blog form and then I did it and I didn't find it so bad. It was slightly scary but I love my friends and family because they have been super supportive and that helps a lot.

This week I would like to talk about a personal challenge to myself to become more of a minimalist. This includes living with less, pairing down the stuff I have and fighting the urge to accumulate more. I have been reading the signs from the universe and she has been very clear in illustrating that I need to stop shopping and stop spending my money recklessly. These signs have come in the form of me continually losing and/or breaking many of my things lately.

With inspiration and help from my best friend over at the Sarcastic Bystander,I have already paired down my closet. I donated, repurposed and/or threw-out about 170 pieces of clothing that I no longer wear or are inappropriate for various reasons including being worn out, wrong size, etc. I donated most of the pieces to Value Village and threw out anything that was too far gone. Here is a handy visual of all the clothes I purged from my closet:

                                                                        Picture used with permission from http://www.sarcasticbystander.com/

Before my closet demolition, I also helped her purge her closet in her quest to live a more healthy and minimalist life. Check out her purge I helped with!

We have also embarked on a challenge to not buy any more clothing for the rest of the summer. So far I have stuck to this challenge fairly well (minus a slip or 2). So in that vain and with inspiration from my best friend and her healthy lifestyle I am going to set myself an additional summer challenge.

The Summer Purge of 2013 (as I have so named it) will include the following:

• In addition to buying no more clothing for the summer, I also commit to not buying any more accessories and purging the accessories I do have;
• Purging of my books and bookshelf, including finishing the numerous books I have started and getting rid of those University textbooks I will never touch again;
• Organizing and purging all the 'stuff' I have stored at my parents that I hope to use once I move out; and
• I am a paper and sticker hoarder, so I think it is time to use, sell, donate & purge a lot of that stuff as well.

So this is my challenge to myself and one thing that has always been hard for me in sticking to challenges and commitments I make to myself is the follow-through. I can talk myself into or out of anything and I am great with the excuses. I hope that this public commitment to the challenge will help motivate me better than I've been able to motivate myself so far. I know a lot of you can relate to this so please help me out and keep me accountable. This will be the first of many challenges I set for myself that I will share with you that will hopefully lead to a healthier, happier and uncommon life. Challenge Accepted! :)