Beep… beep… beep! This morning’s New Year cleaning is interrupted for an important alert about clutter. Holding on to our stuff seems innocent enough, but at some point it becomes clutter and clutter is harmful to our physical and mental well being.

Your living space makes a big difference in your health. It’s much easier to handle the stresses of daily life when you can come home to a clean and airy home. Plus, an additional benefit to clearing out space is to become more mobile, which is an important step in our future travel plans after early retirement!

So, let’s get started! But wait, “this doesn’t apply to me” you say? Mr. Saturday and I feel like we do a good job of regularly bagging stuff up for donation, so I didn’t think this clutter issue applied to us either. It’s easy to become clutter-blind, especially for our own clutter.

Many thanks to Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, for helping me take my blinders off and see the clutter in my home. When I read through the types of clutter, I laughed out loud. Perhaps seeing the types of clutter listed out (and sharing my personal clutter experience) will help some of you as well.

Aspirational Clutter

These are things we aspire to use, but just don’t use.

• My very high heels. They’re so cute but I never actually wear them because they’re uncomfortable.
• Bamboo. Yes, that’s right. We have huge stacks of bamboo in our garage that I’ve aspired to use for a craft project around the house, but if I’m honest with myself, I know we won’t get around to doing anything with it. We also put a lot of work into the bamboo – dragging it down the street from a neighbor’s house, stripping it of the branches, cutting it, and drying it out – so it’s been tough to see all that go to waste. It’s time to find someone who could use it for their arts & craft project.

Bargain Clutter

These are things that we purchase because they are on sale, but we really don’t need.

• Food. I’ll admit we were starting to turn into food hoarders. It’s still a good idea to buy food that’s on sale and take advantage of good deals, however, how many boxes of crackers do you really want to store??
• Winter clothes and accessories. We live in a warmer climate so we really only wear beanies a few times a year, and yet I have accumulated half a dozen beanies that were on sale.

Buyer’s Remorse Clutter

These started out as bad purchases, but we don’t want to admit it, so we keep them around.

• Motorcycle. We really shouldn’t have purchased that Suzuki motorcycle. It sat in the garage for years, and now we’re finally able to admit that we just won’t ride it. Time to sell!
• Alcohol. All those wine tastings where we end up buying too many bottles of wine. Well, I guess it’s time to throw a party!

Note from Mr Saturday: After many years debating about whether or not to keep the motorcycles, I’ve finally decided that we’ve had plenty of fun & a lot of good memories, but the risk/reward ratio is too high. We have a lot to live for in this life! It just takes one split second that could devastate the rest of our lives in a minor motorcycle accident. So finally – WE SOLD THEM BOTH! Woohoo! Time to put that money to work and move on to other fun things like more water sports or more backpacking! Maybe kayaks or paddle boards could be in our future??? 😉

Conservation Clutter

These are generally useful things, but useless to us personally.

• An extra BBQ grill. Yes, we actually won this in a radio contest that someone entered us in without our knowing. It’s useful, so we brought it home and stored it in our garage, but it’s useless to us because we actually already have a working grill. Ha! Time to get rid of one of them.
• Left over decorations from our wedding. It’s been 7 years and yet I’m still holding on to twelve vases. Someone else can certainly make more use of these.

Crutch Clutter

These are things that we use, but perhaps we shouldn’t.

• Old sleepwear that have holes from years of wear, but we keep them around because they’re so comfortable… I guess it probably is time to make room in my drawer.
• End table that we use for junk. Any mail we don’t want to deal with right now ends up on this table, our extra gadgets, and my extra purses. It’s time to get rid of that table and force ourselves to put away our junk.

Freebie Clutter

These include things such as hand-me-downs & giveaways.

• Reusable bags. We get so many of these at festivals, but do I really want to walk around with a bag that displays the name of a hospital?
• Hand-me-down clothes. Occasionally family members give me bags of clothes to look through in case there’s anything I like before they give or throw it away. I should really be more picky about the ones I keep because most of these end up sitting in my closet for years.
• Unwanted gifts. Every Christmas, we end up with more junk, which is actually why we try not to do gifts at our family gatherings, yet it still creeps in somehow. I certainly don’t need any more s’more makers, vases, or handheld puzzles.

Nostalgic Clutter

These are things from years back, perhaps from our childhood, that give us nostalgia.

• Books, books, & more books. How do we accumulate so many books?!? With a library so close to home, we can rent these books at any time and save the space in our house. The library basically provides free rent for our books.
• Childhood toys. I’ve kept most of my childhood toys, but since we’re not going to have children of our own to pass them down to (not that they would want them anyway), it’s time to donate some of them.

Outgrown Clutter

These are things we no longer use.

• Soy milk maker. It was great when we were into making our own milks, but we haven’t been interested in doing that for years. It’s time to make additional space in our cabinets.
• Scuba tanks (& other outgrown hobbies / collectibles). Perhaps we will take up scuba diving again someday, but we haven’t gone in so many years so those tanks are just taking up space.

Well, I put it all out there – all our clutter. Now it’s time to get to work & get rid of these items. How about you?