Week 46

Are you reading The Mimimalists yet? There was a great post recently on the minimalism paradox:

"Minimalists don’t avoid material possessions; we avoid excess. Paradoxically, by owning less, the things we own bring greater joy to our lives.
In other words, all of our things are our favorite things. Otherwise they are in the way."

So good, right? I immediately thought about how we don't have a ton of knick-knacks lying around the house, and the ones that we do, I really love. I don't know why I haven't fully applied this theory to other areas of my house.

I've purged a lot of clothes, but I certainly have kept a great deal of items that I don't really love, and thus rarely wear. I have a big plastic bin full of "work" clothes in the attic. Does it make sense to keep a bunch of things for an office-type job that I don't have (or want)? Especially if they don't work into my everyday style at all? Do I really need 5 winter hats that I don't like enough to actually wear?

I love books. I love the feel of crisp pages, I love the smell of them, I love the weight of a hardcover book in my hands. I look forward to having space for more of our books to be out and enjoyed like artwork someday. But do I need all of the books we have in the basement? All of the mediocre paperbacks that I won't want to read again or cradle in my hands?

I love to cook. I have large collection of kitchen and dining things -- probably more than average -- and I put the vast majority of them to good use. But do I use everything?

The answer to most of these questions is "No." I have more work to do than I thought.

The items, backstory, and method of expulsion: Clothing. Some clothing of my daughter's that she'd outgrown -- some went into a bag to donate once the bag fills up and some went into a bag to share with her cousin once it fills up. Also a handful of items of mine went into my first (nearly full!) bag of clothing for my annual clothing swap.
Monetary impact: $0
YTD monetary impact: $469.13