A guest post by – My Husband

During a recent overseas business trip I read about an experiment to choose six clothing items and only use those items for a month. You could have multiple copies of each item, even a different colour counted as a separate item but underwear, sleepwear, shoes and jackets etc did not count. I looked at my standard travel wardrobe, and found two pairs of Columbia pants, four sweat-wicking golf shirts (three colours) and two pairs of shorts. Five items to which I could add a more formal shirt for those dressier occasions, and still meet the Six Items or Less challenge. I lived with these five items for three weeks, and as you read this I am using them again for a month in Italy. No one ever comments on my limited wardrobe, and my daily choices are limited to picking the colour of my shirt for the day. Could I live like this for longer periods, or is six items too few to cover every contingency?

I decided that with some minor modifications, the experiment could be applied to my every day life and significantly reduce the size of my wardrobe. The first adaptation was to allow different colours of the same items so my four golf shirts would become one item. I also allowed myself some latitude items that get regular use in rotation with other similar items. For example, I had many long-sleeve shirts of different brands from which I selected the ones I use regularly and counted them as one item. As these items wear out I will look at following my plan to find an item I like that will replace all the differing brands. Using these adaptations, I have reduced my wardrobe to seven items plus work uniforms that are supplied and required by my employer.

I feel liberated from the fashion cycle, and yet have retained the best of my clothes while ridding myself of clothes that are functional but never made it into my rotation. For most of us, we keep returning to the same old favourites until they fall apart, so why clutter our closets with clothes that are never going to be worn? With a smaller clothing footprint, the clothes are not jammed into the hanging space, come off the hanger ready to wear and I can see my entire wardrobe in one place.

The Six Items or Less challenge looks daunting at first but a worthwhile experiment for anyone seeking to simplify their life. The original experimenters had a variety of experiences, and you can read their stories here. Now it is your turn.

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The first of the clothes that were decluttered from my hubbies closet

In case you are wondering what I am talking about perhaps you should first read Day 227 – Have you ever watched paint dry…

Now that we are on the same page you will know what I mean by “the paint finally dried” yes it really happened my son finally went through his clothes and we have eliminated several items.

I wheeled the portable clothes hanger into his room last night asked him nicely to make his choices. I could hear a lot of groaning as I left him to it for about an hour. He is nineteen so these things don’t just happen instantly it’s prudent to make a hasty retreat and hope for the best.

I don’t think anything went back into his closet. Two “treasured” shirts went into his collection in his storage container in the garage. The rest will be going to charity. I know it is just one small step forward in my decluttering efforts but I think I deserve extra points for the degree of difficulty.

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Here is one of the items that The Boy (as we affectionately call him)  was happy to part with. I chose this item for today’s post because it fits in so nicely with the Clutter Years Tally for the week. He last used this Karate Gi when he was 7 1/2  he is now 19 so that is another 11.5 years making a total so far of 54.5 years and we are only 3 days in.

…that is the question. Well actually it isn’t a question any more because I made a decision. I am talking about my sock drawer, not earth shattering, high drama stuff I know but just one more area to consider.

So I emptied it out, matched up the odd socks that had escaped from their partners, stretched a few pair of nylons (stockings or whatever you like to call them) to make sure they weren’t perished beyond usefulness and pondered over the many pairs of socks that I have to admit haven’t been worn for some time. I took into account that this was my sock drawer so half empty or full it would still be my sock drawer because I had no other use for it. At that point I came to my decision.

I will let natural progression decluttering take place on this occasion. Socks tend to wear out at a fairly rapid pace with regular use so I will use my favourites until they go in the trash and then use the bottom dwellers thus getting full use out of every pair.  Were I to throw away or donate the bottom dwellers I would have to buy replacements sooner thus increasing supply and demand for new pairs.

I know this hasn’t been the most informative or fascinating post I have ever written but it just goes to prove not everything needs decluttering.

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My son didn’t want these any more so I gave them to the son of a friend of mine. He is a Star Wars fan.

I wanted to do follow up on yesterday’s post with some practical advice on children’s wardrobes. I would like you to keep in mind that my children are 21 & 19 now and it has been a while since I had control over what they wear.

When my children were small, well actually they are still small but we will come to that soon, I was very lucky that I really didn’t need to buy much for them in the way of clothing. Both my mother and mother-in-law are very good at sewing and made most of the clothes they needed. My MIL would buy good second-hand clothing and shoes for them on occasion as well. I don’t recall them being inundated with more clothes than they needed so there was no out of control spending that’s for sure. Also because they were small the fabric required was minimal and were often off-cuts so no waste there much either.

As I mentioned, both my kids aren’t big. When they were little I could never predict what size clothes they would need for the next season because their growth rate was not the average. So I never took advantage of end of season sales. One of the advantages of having small kids is that they tend to wear their clothing out rather than grow out of them so that was my savings advantage. We also lived in the tropics for four years of their young lives so there was no seasons to buy for really.

When my daughter turned twelve I copped the usual teenage girl desire for name brand clothes and going shopping with her became a nightmare. I did what all smart mothers would do and gave her a clothing allowance. It didn’t take long for her to realize that the money I gave her would not buy much unless she settled for sensible brands with reasonable prices. She soon learned how to find a bargain and that she was cute enough without doing free advertising for companies whose clothes were not that well made anyway.

My son however has always been hard to fit because he has always been a skinny little thing so he tends to find something that he likes that fits and wears it to death. He still wears his little league t-shirts from when he was twelve he is now nineteen. Says a lot for how well they catered for sizes at his little league club but that is another story. He mostly lives in skinny jeans, t-shirts and button up flannel shirts these days because that is the skateboarder fashion. His one weakness is skate shoes but now that he is responsible for paying for them himself I am sure he will be more careful with them. Oh and he will not part with any band t-shirts or hoodies that he has ever owned and they are stored in a box in the garage. I am not happy about that.

Sure there were times where they had more than they needed. Sometime an item was bought that they didn’t like so much and didn’t wear to its full potential. Every now and again there had to be the “only for good” outfit that they grew out of before they wore out but for the most part we didn’t do too badly.

The moral of this story is we all know our kids well enough to know the style of clothing that best suits their everyday needs. We pretty much have a handle on their growth rate and their personalities. We know if they are the rough and tumble type or the gentle variety. We know how often we have time to do the laundry and the type of climate we live in. We know the kind of social lives we lead separately and together as a family.

All our kids need is enough clothing of the variety that best suits the needs of the categories above and no more. If something wears out it is easy enough to replace it so there is no need for multiple back ups. If you are lucky like I was and someone else is catering well to their needs in this area just be grateful of one less financial pressure. If that leaves you with extra funds maybe you could funnel the savings into a college fund or something else that suits their immediate needs. It is best to teach them now that excess is not necessary for a happy life, they will thank you for it in the end.

I am not going to be a hypocrite and pretend that I taught my kids all the right lessons when it comes to being frugal. Hindsight is a great thing but often too late. Suddenly having an independent income can go to their heads when it happens no matter how well you think you taught them. I just hope the fundamentals are locked in their somewhere and they will settle into it.

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This Thomas the Tank Engine train set was a Christmas gift to my son many years ago. He kindly allowed me to give it to his young cousins who are Thomas fans.

I don’t know if I am interpreting “Inner Voice” the wrong way but I don’t happen to agree that you should always listen to it like people often advise. I think of “Inner Voice” as that niggling little feeling inside that makes you feel cautious when faced with certain situations that you aren’t to sure about.

In my experience that little voice often tells lies and undermines your common sense. I have suffered from depression on and off during my life and I can tell you for sure that that little voice hasn’t helped during those periods. It has come right to the forefront causing me a whole lot of unnecessary grief that I definitely shouldn’t have listened to.

Would you tell a person suffering from  schizophrenia to listen to their “Inner Voice”? I think not. Even if I have got the “Inner Voice” confused with something else, who is to say which feeling is which. I am also sure that most people inflicted with a hoarding disorder are listening to what they think is their inner voice telling them to keep useless things because they many be important some day.

My point here is that you should stop and question that thing that you think is your inner voice at least in the following situations…

• When it tells you to buy that cute sweater because it will make you feel better when you are having a bad day. In a week or two that sweater will just be languishing in the back of your closet with ten of it’s other “bad day’ friends making you feel guilty for wasting your money on it.
• When it tells you that you should keep all your fat/skinny clothes because you may need them one day. These clothes make you feel bad if they are skinny clothes and undermine your new healthy way of life if they are your fat clothes.
• When it tells you to dwell on your mistakes from the past instead of just learning from them and moving on.
• When it tells you to worry about things that haven’t happened yet and probably won’t. (I have spent a good bit of my life worrying about things that never happened.)
• When it tells you you should keep clutter just in case you may need it one day. Oh how busy that little voice can be worrying people into hoarding all sorts of useful stuff that would be better of in the hands of people how actually will use them NOW!
• When it tells you you have to hang on to great-granddads old mahogany dining table because so and so (usually someone who didn’t want it cluttering up their house) will be so disappointed it you don’t. If it is a family heirloom there is probably some other person in the family happy to take it off your hands. Even if it is valuable that value is no use to you if you aren’t “allowed” to sell it.

Then again maybe I have just haven’t dug deep enough and have all this time been listening to some bad shallow voice. Kind of like in cartoons where there is an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Still when you can’t see which costume they are wearing it is hard to tell the difference.

I am sure you can come up with more of your own examples of when that inner voice has mislead you into doing things that weren’t all that advisable in hindsight. Please leave me a comment with some of your own personal examples I would love to hear from you.

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A little voice said “keep these computer parts they will come in useful one day”. In actual fact all they became was clutter for a long time and now they have been donated to charity and hopefully someone else is finding them useful again now.

Well the seasons are a changin’ now and the days are getting cooler here in the land down under. The winter woolies (clothing) have started to make an appearance and some of them are just not living up to expectation. I pulled a sweater out of the drawer today and within ten minutes I had had enough of the scratchiness of it so I took it off and put it in the donation box.

Winter can be uncomfortable enough especially when it is wet as well as cool like it has been here for the last two weeks so the last thing I need is to be made more irritated by clothes that don’t feel nice or are just not user friendly. As the cooler weather continues and I start to make my way through my winter wardrobe I will be assessing as I go and anything that doesn’t pass the comfort test will not make it’s way back  into my closet.

…Is it obvious I am suffering from a little cabin fever at the moment? I am missing my early morning walks for their fresh air and sunshine that gets my day going. If the weather doesn’t improve soon I am just going to have to buy a raincoat and rubber boots and start walking rain, hail or shine. Anyway now that I have got that out of my system….

Lets call the selection process above Natural Progression Decluttering. Instead of wasting a couple of hours going through my closet trying on my winter clothes and eliminating the ones that don’t make the cut I will just judge them as I get to them. I wish all my delcuttering was this easy at least that is something to be cheerful about. I will have to see if there is anything else I can adopt this strategy with.

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Here is the sweater mentioned above it was not a thing of beauty so it will be no great loss

Previously I mentioned how a change of  location and or lifestyle can have an impact on the necessity for certain  items around your home. Our move from Seattle in the USA back to Australia has rendered our ski gear mostly useless to us as we are now 700km from the closest ski fields. Sure we might like to take a winter holiday to the snow some time but in Australia you can hire both ski clothes and equipment should that ever happen. We also have some items that no longer fit our children anyway. So I decided to sell it all on eBay.

Now I did my homework first and checked similar completed auctions on eBay to see how this type of product was selling and it didn’t look that great but I figured I would give it a shot anyway and take what I could get. The goggles in particular weren’t performing very well.

I am pleased to be able to say my auctions have gone very well. Everything I put up for auction sold and now there is a lovely big space in one of the cupboards in our house. The combined starting price for my auctions was $108.00 and the total amount that I fetched was $312.00, “got to be happy with that”. Those 4 pair of goggles I mentioned brought in $147.87 of the total.

Altogether I sold…

• 1 adult jacket
• 3 kids jackets
• 4 kids pants
• 2 pair of kids gloves
• 4 pair of goggles (2 kids 2 adults)

I haven’t had any feed back yet but I hope the buyers will all happy with their purchases.

ITEMS 127 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I have decided to list each combined auction sale as one item because otherwise I will be boring you with ski gear for the next two weeks as it is it will take ten days to get through it all. These two items sold for a grand total of $37.50.

While having coffee with a friend- lets call this friend Amber – she told me about a conversation she had had with one of her friends who had an interesting  method she was intending to deploy in order to declutter her wardrobe.

As I have mentioned before I live in Australia, Amber’s friend -lets call her Leanne- is about to go on a vacation to the United States where the shopping is great. I haven’t talked to Leanne personally about this situation but I believe her intention is to only pack clothes that she no longer likes or are starting to wear out and when she get to the USA she will wear these clothes and then throw them away and have a wonderful time shopping to replace them.

There is a quadruple benefit to this plan..

1. She will have a lovely new selection of clothing by the time she gets home
2. She will have disposed of all her old unwanted clothes
3. She wont need to buy an extra suitcase to bring her purchases home in because she has freed up the space by getting rid of her old clothes
4. She will save precious sightseeing time and cash by only having to spend half the amount of time in the laundromat while she is away because the first round of dirty clothes will be going in the trash.

I would like to mention at this point that Amber was appalled with this plan because she thinks Leanne should be setting a good example of how Australian women present themselves. I however think it is a great idea and even though Leanne may look a little shabby when she gets there she is going to look pretty sharp by the time she comes home.

I will let you know how this plan worked out when Leanne returns from her vacation. I believe she will be reading this post before she leaves so it will give her incentive to live up to my expectations and carry out the plan to the letter. No pressure Leanne.

ITEM 122 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Hair bands are one of those hit and miss purchases that you don’t know how they are going to work out until you have worn them for a while. Those that stay in place and don’t give you a headache stay, the rest, like this one must go.

Lets face it, we all have clothes in our closet we haven’t worn for some time that for one reason or another we are reluctant to part with. Well, today I have a plan to help you sort out your closet and at the same time take away the difficult part of that task, choosing. Pick a friend someone you have known for a least a couple of years  who you trust and value their opinion. Ask them to help you go through your closet and decide for you the items that they feel need to go. Since they have known you for a reasonable amount of time they will know what clothes they have never or rarely seen you in and because you value their opinion they should feel free to tell you which items are out-dated or just wrong for you. You never know you might both have a bit of fun in the process.

Today’s item – A pair of Doc Martins although good, rarely worn.