I love a good clear out. Or a proper Spring clean. It is one of my most favourite things to do and it feels amazing. The house looks tidier, you know where everything is, you have so much more space and you feel great!

This is good for about three months and then for some strange reason I find myself surrounded by garbage again. Why? Why is this?

I’m not a hoarder. At least not in the sense of potentially being crushed to death by a pile of newspapers. Although I admit I do have a tendency to hold on to things that I don’t really need. I think it’s important to keep some things for sentimental reasons but there has to be a place where you draw the line.

I would love a minimalist home. I know we don’t need all of this stuff.

Stuff and things just create mess and clutter, then the mess and clutter needs to be dusted, vacced and cleaned. Well enough is enough. I plan to have our home shifted in to a more minimalist way of living.

This is going to take some time. I have 33 years worth of stuff in this house.

Just looking around my bedroom right now I can see at least 5 things that I just do not need.

When I start having a clear out I always come across things that I have either never used or have forgotten about and not missed. Therefore it can go.

I have a wardrobe clear out rule; If you haven’t worn it within the last six months then it goes. This doesn’t include formal wear, just every day clothing items.

Last week we had a huge purge of unwanted crap. I have sent ¾ of our DVD collection to Music Magpie. We’ve kept the classics and the awesomeness. I’ve also uploaded my entire CD collection on to an SD card and sent the CD’s off to Music Magpie. This in turn has cleared out a sideboard which we have just flogged on Facebook Marketplace 🙂

So as well as making the house look better I’ve made some pennies in the process. It’s just simple little things and I promise it gets easier the more you do it. You start to realise that you just do not need all of this stuff.

My plan from now on is to get rid of 5 things from a different room every week. They don’t have to be huge pieces of furniture. Clearing out paperwork is a good one. I never keep anything that’s over 12 months old, bank statements, pay slips etc. I go through them every six months and burn what we don’t need anymore.

I know it can be physically painful to get rid of things, I know how attached we can become to things. As a child I never wanted to give my soft toys away because I genuinely thought that they would miss me and they would wonder why I’d given them away. This of course is absurd but it’s the same sort of feeling that I used to get when clearing out old birthday and Christmas cards.

If you really cannot part with them then maybe make them in to a collage or scan them and store them digitally. I must admit I do have Christmas cards from years ago from my Nana and Grandad and I do need to get them made in to a collage, what’s the point of them being shoved in a box? They might as well be in the bin. All the other Christmas cards I get are recycled by me in to gift tags for the next year.

There’s so many different ways that you can reuse and recycle the things you really can’t give up. My Mum is making some of my old t-shirts into pillow cases for me because even though I don’t wear them anymore they’re too awesome to get rid of.

My plan is to get the house organised in to minimalist living within 12 months…I’ll keep posting updates so you can see how we’re getting on 🙂