I laughed this AM watching a you tube video of my favorite ASMR gal talk about how people need to learn to consume less, meanwhile she gets subscription boxes of perfume, relaxation junk, and more. Figuring out how to save can be as much of a thrill as figuring out how to buy!

^ so true!

The other day my neighbor (also an empty nester) chided me for giving up my Costco membership and “all the deals” - meanwhile she has 100+ boxes of ziploc bags stuffed into the top shelf of her front coat closet 🤷‍♀️

My mother once had a very thought-provoking book. It showed a typical family from different nations/regions/cultures, standing in front of their home, with all of the items from inside the home piled around them. For some places, home was a one-room, thatched-roofed, mud hut, and possessions were a sleeping mat per person and a cooking pot. For America . . . ???

@la_la Girl, as in many of your posts I think we are on the same wave length, tho on separate coasts. I too just gave up memberships... an old friend long passed once told me she didn't even buy green bananas

Why leave the extras for someone else to clean up.

Have what you use, buy only what you need. Happy Holidays!

Eight years ago, we moved from a 2600 sf house in the suburbs to an 1100 sf condo in the city with limited closet space (although pretty ample, as condos go). We did a huge purge of everything to (a) stage the house before it was sold and (b) pare down to the essentials to downsize to the new place. We don't miss a thing. We go to Costco only for things like paper goods and certain food items we like. After that, we buy only what we can eat at Safeway. And if we buy new clothes, something else has to be given away. We probably do a Goodwill run twice a year.

As a nation, our obsession with shopping and consumerism is insane. This is why, too, when it comes to decorating or remodeling, buy quality items that are timeless so it will last a good 15 to 20 years or more. If you buy inexpensive stuff, it will just end up in a landfill faster.

My husband is a wonderful organizer. In our one car garage he has his Moto Guzi (large) motorcycle, lawnmower, large house sized generator, huge toolbox, and I can still fit my Passat VW car in it! He is always amazed how people have so much junk in their garages, that they can’t fit their car in their garage. We are seniors now, and adopted the philosophy : “ less is more”. A few weeks ago we went through all his clothing and I gathered several bags of it for charity donation. I did the same for my stuff. I also no not “save things”. I use everything, and enjoy them: good jewelry, nice clothing, family dishware from both my grandmothers and my mother.

I use what I have , I purge my closet at least every 2 yrs and try not to replace what I didn't need anymore. I hate wasting food so I shop often sometimes daily and have a tiny compost bucket that goes to pick up once a week to go to the nice new compost at the dump where hopefully ina year we will be able to pick up for our gardens . . I love good quality items that I use for instance I have a lot of Alessi pieces all of whach are used dialy or at least weekly. I buy good large pieces that last me for a long time like all my furniture and appliances . Our sofa we gave to our son was 40 yrs old he replaced the foam sits like new . I do buy toliet paper when on sale and shop Amazon for deals for things we use all the time . I live a long way from a Costco but need very little in that size for our use . We ar ein our late 70s but still take international students so the food bill still pretty high.

Oh you really hit a nerve, lalagirl! So much waste! So much purchasing too much stuff that gets thrown away. And there is no “away”. Everything you discard and even recycle ends up somewhere. And it’s not pretty.

I do recall hearing that the standard American household contains 300,000 items. Not hard to believe when so many of our neighbors can’t park in their garage. We can BUT I’m still plenty guilty!🥴

I’m always amazed at some people who choose a different color and/or style ”theme” each year for Christmas. Where on earth do they store it all?

la_la Girl, your neighbor with the Ziploc bags sounds like one I know. In her case it’s a serious hoarding issue.

I have a lot of stuff, but I do not have anything from places like Homegoods, and I do not buy random decorative items or anything like that. Or random gadgets.

We have two bottle openers in the kitchen: one is a TapBoy bottle opener that my mother got as a shower present in 1954, the "newer" bottle opener is from sometime when I was in HS c. 1980. A good portion of my things are nearly as old or older than I am. I did buy new flatware this year when we finished a new kitchen. We were using silverware I got when I went to grad school.

We also broke down and bought new flatware this year Pal, we were too low on knives and since we clearly spread a lot of things this was an issue 😅 FWIW we still have our uber simple white dishware from our wedding 30 yrs ago — Bennington Pottery lets you restock bowls, plates as needed which I appreciate

I do have almost 200 objects set out on three tables in my LR or dining area just for disclosure. I have no shortage of stuff.

What was the name of the book reviewed in the New Yorker?

It is a history of professional organizing as a job -

If you are even remotely concerned about all the stuff offered for sale, and what happens to it, you should watch "Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy" on Netflix. It's very eye-opening and disturbing.

I think the book SimplyNatural mentioned is "Material World: A Global Family Portrait" by Peter Menzel. Now, as an empty nester, I appreciate the value of limiting material possessions. Having said that, I came across this thread while exploring Houzz for ideas to add architectural interest, like arches and crown molding, to my LR/DR! 🤣

These days, my main focus is on staying healthy and enjoying our location through daily walks. I also want to ensure our house is still a home for our adult children, who are still studying and often visit us. So, the goal of creating a happy home environment is ongoing ... while avoiding unnecessary purchases. Cheers, everyone!

Dianna, "The Shopping Conspiracy" is on my list.

If anyone is looking for laughs, try the "Boomers" on Prime; the music from the 60's tops of a great series. If I weren't in bed, in my 'jamies, I would get up and dance.

chispa, he was definitely a classic!

Carlin--so perfect! Imagine what he would say today???!!!!

Thank you, @lobo_93! I had forgotten both title and author. A local library has the book, so I will borrow it. I want my grandsons to see it.

We downsized in a big way this year by moving out of our 2100 sq ft home - first to a rental in a new town, then 4 months later into a 1330 sq ft home that we bought. All of the moves, preceded by a clean out to put the house on the market, were fantastic opportunities to dump so much stuff! For a couple of childless old farts we had so much stuff! Luckily a lot of it was my spouse’s collectible books, which have financed a new kitchen, back door replacement, landscape project and some new cabinets in our dining room. 🎉
We just emptied the storage unit we’d had since we started this undertaking 13 months ago. It was a huge weight off our shoulders and our wallets to the tune of about $300/month!
When we were dealing with our aging parents I formulated a simple philosophy for lightening the load:

• meditate a lot and work on loosening our attachments to everything
• move into places of decreasing size because it forces you to get rid of stuff
• do it while you can enjoy the pleasure of lightening your load and save your loved ones the stress and work of doing it for you

At the end of every season, if I have not worn an article of clothing during that season, it gets donated!

(It helps that a great thrift store has a deposit bin permanently stationed in the basement of my building. It's easy to take the elevator down in my slippers and donate a shirt or two if that is all I have to get rid of. It all helps.)

American Bulk: Essays on Excess by Emily Mester was a fascinating book I finished recently.

Having spent 9 years living on a 44’ sailboat, I’m familiar with living with what most Americans would consider very little. However, that very little was very carefully chosen and very nice. I prefer living slightly less spartanly than that now, but still like nice stuff while hating to be overwhelmed by great quantities of it.

guru, you have taken an approach much like my own, in that the first thing you mentioned is to loosen attachments. That is what I have been doing for hubs and I over a course of several years.

We were going to move out of our house and we had a contract of another place, but it all fell through for various reasons. One big result is that I had taken that time to really pare down our possessions to a significnat degree. I had already been doing that in smaller increments for some years before, and this was a big shove.

That was a couple of years ago and I have contintued on the same path of letting go.

It will be easier when we have no choice but to move.

I think it to our advantage to have lightened our load as we got older. We need to be prepared for changes. That change could be him losing me and he is in no way able to manage. I can live on my own still, but he wont be able to do that.

That is one big reason why I have no pets. Who would take care of them if we had to suddenly transition our lives?

It is I who is doing all of this. Hubs is not able to take action or participate in this to any meaningful degree. Just about all decisions are mine to make....just about. He is still functioning and getting around , but he doesnt do much independently anymore. The idea of a new strange place upsets him to a degree that it affects him physically. So, I am trying to keep him happy and comfortable and that means letting go of so much.

I am pleased with how far I have come with this.

There is so little that really is of importance as you get older and there is no future to save anything for. I dont want our kids to have to find themselves with piles of papers, tons of books and old CDs that they have no interest in. Also sentimental items gets culled through. I dont want them keeping things out of sentiment. I dont want to leave a lot of junk for them to deal with.

I also dealt with photos and documents and the such. For instance, they dont need photos of our friends when we were young. Our kids never knew these people.

About that book...I have a copy of Material World. It is a very interesting photo essay about the idea of having things. I will bet that some of that has changed. I believe the book must have been published sometime maybe in the 90s or before. I have had a copy of it since about 2002, or so, and it was on the bargain pile at that time. I bet that consumption has increased for some of these people over that time.

I don't get torn up about it -- I don't care if they stuff their closets with things or donate them. If shopping is your crutch, instead of coffee, gossiping, exercising, etc, then that's between you and maybe your family, not me. I don't get judgemental about how other people choose to spend their money; in fact, it irritates me when people think they know better how someone else should spend their money or arrange their home.

My drawers are stuffed with t-shirts, yoga pants, and sweaters - not because I buy a lot, but because I don't clean out my closets regularly, figuring I'll never know when I want to wear [whatever colour] shirt or sweater I have. Same with kitchen appliances, because I know even if I use it once a year, it's not hurting me to keep it in the cupboard until then.

I've also found my desire for shopping, storing, using, or donating has changed over the years.

Personally Toronto Vet I don’t care either what people spend their money on. My issue is the amount of waste we as a society are generating, which goes to landfills or worse, pollutes the earth and the seas. The plastic pollution is horrifying. As is the electronic pollution. We don’t see it in the developed countries-it is shipped overseas and then they have to live with it. It’s a global problem that has been caused by over shopping and cheap disposable products.

" My issue is the amount of waste we as a society are generating, which goes to landfills or worse, pollutes the earth and the seas. "

Great! Work with an organization that works to change the culture around stuff, but I don't see any benefit in complaining, let alone criticizing, what an individual stranger does. This is not a problem caused by individuals, it's a problem caused by a culture - so all the humblebragging is wasted, IMO.

Interesting take - I think everyone on the thread agrees it’s cultural.

I don’t see humble-bragging but folks sharing ideas/approaches as we all struggle with this issue

Ha, this whole "Design Dilemmas" section is about what you call complaining/discussing/ruminating on topics. If you don't like the discussion, then don't read or comment on it.

After unpacking parents homes I have vowed not to pass that on to my kids and grandkids. My mother was not a hoarder, but could not let go of anything that was given as a gift (goodbye sad holiday stuff), As children of the depression something could always be fixed, etc. and I get that. But for younger households who now can purchase so much at so many price levels I don’t quite get it.

I got rid of tons of stuff when we” downsized” , but still have essentially 4 BR’s, garage, garden shed. Still a lot of cookware, hobbies, tools. Still working through more memorabilia and photos, both for me and for descendants— agreeing that I can toss photos of people my ancestors knew but I don’t recognize or only know if labeled, and my dear relatives that my own kids never knew, well , I’m ready to cull all but perhaps a few best pics of them. And whittling away items that over time I see aren’t part of where I want to focus or spend my time. Some things are easy as they become obsolete related to newer technology or upgrades. Some things I saved from my departed parents because it’s hard to let go at first, then over time can tell the difference between grief-saving vs a few special items.

I’ve observed many friends & relatives go through transitions to smaller house, then “ retirement community “ cottage, apartment, efficiency, a single room…. shedding more and more. This may be how things go for me. Still, if I were to drop dead while still enjoying gardening, cooking and serving, some crafts and hobbies , decor I enjoy having around, there will be a lot to go through. Most will not be what my children or grandchildren want, hence an estate sale & boxes to charities will be needed. And there will be a tug of sentimentality to some degree, I imagine. I don’t feel I can worry about that too much. Instead I focus on some ongoing decluttering of the least-used items, having little epiphanies here and there about things that I no longer use or even like, things that require care/ cleaning I don’t want to do, streamlining cabinets or shelves or drawers that may show I dint need an entire item of furniture that was just storing things, or that some “ collections” I once though were so cool or somehow expressed “ me”, now seem irrelevant. To me, not because of worry about others. Things that weigh down or complicate or prevent activities I want to be doing now.

Plus, not adding more stuff!

well, you folks who want can have over stuffed everything, but I dont want to have to deal with it as I become increasingly unable to do so for myself.

Also it is a gentle unleashing from the things in my life so that I am not abruptly severed from all I know and love.

I love my sparse home.

I dont want my kids to have to go through old dental records, way too personal undergarments and rotting plastic containers and all that stuff. I dont want that to be my last impression on this earth.

If you dont have kids who are going to have to deal with it, it may be a different decision for to make. If you dont have an ailing husband to care for, it may be different. But we need to be as light on our feet as we can, and ready to make changes when needed.

<Edited for clarity> The article mentions "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning;" I'm sharing Houzz/Becky Harris's book reviewhere. It is interesting how decluttering can be cultural, too! I'm not trying to upset anyone; in fact, here I am posting while looking for friendly advice on new blinds for my LR/DR (before I move or downsize).🤣

This thread resonates with me: I'm, age 88, still living in a too-big house after my husband died this fall. Over the years I've tried to gradually downsize: I gave some cherished serving dishes to a daughter who actually wanted them but they were just catching dust for me, I decided to use the embroidered pillow cases that need ironing and actually wore out three of the six pairs and the other three are starting to show the wear, when my griddle warped I threw it out and didn't replace it because I have a fry pan that will serve as well, I gave away my yarn stash resolving to just buy what I will use up, and I donated my 200+ professional books to a scientific library (I had to supply them with the ISBN number of each before they would accept them!). Last Christmas when I put up our newer skinnier tree I put aside any ornaments that I wasn't using, a daughter took about half and this fall I brought the rest to Goodwill. Altough I still have a lot to go through, my philosophy is to be continually mindful of limiting the "stuff" that doesn't add joy or value to my life.

I'm interested to learn of any hints from fellow readers.

The amount of waste that is created in our consuming is breath taking, for sure.

So many things that I have had to let go out my front door did not get adopted to a forever home. The hardest part can be what to do with it after you have made that break with it.

Marmie, I like the way you call it having " little epiphanies here and there about things that I no longer use or even like, things that require care/ cleaning I don’t want to do,". They do seem to be just that, epiphanies. Hubs says I dont like anything anymore, and he is right .I dont, for a reason.

I have just a small version left of any collections that I may have enjoyed and I do still enjoy my smaller collections.

^ agreed! love the epiphanies idea @marmiegard_z7b

often I get stuck in patterns/ruts and I like trying to think about new ways to use space and or clear out items no longer used - sometimes once stuff sits around for a while it becomes invisible

my sibs and I cleaned out my parents house last year and they had done a lot of donating and downsizing, and it still felt like a lot - I am aware of that for my sons for sure

Great thread. We downsized years ago and gave away/donated So. Much. Stuff.

Our situation was a bit unique — two widowed people in our early 40s who combined two (really four) households. It was emotional to go through what we wanted to keep vs not.

We of course kept the most meaningful things, and other family heirlooms, and I’m glad we did. Plus, we lean slightly more maximalist than minimalist. A collected, layered look. Very little of our decor is brand new … most being antique or vintage. We did buy new sofas last year, as the old ones were 20 yrs old and too cat damaged to fix. I listed them for free on FB Marketplace and a woman wanted them within hours. She had several dogs and planned to put covers over them. She messaged me that night …. said her DH took a nap on one immediately and loved how comfortable it was. :)

The area that needs work right now is our garage. It’s an oversized two-car, and I park my car in it (we could get another vehicle in if needed), but there’s still too much stuff around the perimeter. I’d love a cute little cottage-like storage building out back for yard stuff, holiday decor, and other things. And of course to landscape around. :D

In this household, I’m the sentimental one who has a hard time letting go of things, DH is not. It makes for a nice balance. We both really enjoy the hunt — browsing our favorite antique stores, estate sales, and such — but agreed if we bring anything else into this house, something else has to go. Looking at you, vintage Tonala bird and pottery collection! And you, too, Dala horses! Do you hear me, vintage chairs I can’t resist?

I think I need to downsize again. And stay away from our favorite antique mall.

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“Having spent 9 years living on a 44’ sailboat, I’m familiar with living with what most Americans would consider very little. However, that very little was very carefully chosen and very nice. I prefer living slightly less spartanly than that now, but still like nice stuff while hating to be overwhelmed by great quantities of it.”

Wow! That’s always been my fantasy. :)

I lived in various places in Europe in my early 20s, from apts, to attached homes, to horse barn living quarters …. all were very small. Refrigerators under counters, small washing machine under kitchen counters, one tiny bathroom, etc. I feel very much like your last sentence.

I spent 15 years on a 36’ sailboat, both docked and working and cruising. We had a massive garage sale of everything we owned plus sold the house. At first we were a little unsure how this would work so we kept some stuff in a paid storage locker, which we continued to downsize until we got to a 3x3 air conditioned unit for very special art and pictures. I found a need to be a hunter/gatherer on occasion so I learned to shop without buying anything. I also have a nice shell collection. I still shop without buying.

Years ago I was having a hard time letting go of a piece of furniture because it had been given to me by a deceased family member. My mother said "You've enjoyed it for a long time. Now let someone else enjoy it." Her wise words have stayed with me ever since and as a result I'm at peace when handing off things that no longer serve me. RIP, Mom.