While blog hopping I ran across a list which I have put a link to below which gives a list of 100 things that are free to enjoy and make life happier. It got me thinking that there were a lot of items on that list that were great alternative to shopping. Things that cost nothing or next to nothing but are a lot more social, healthy, educational, uplifting. rewarding… need I go on.

Here are some of the things I could and do take advantage of on a regular basis

• Go for a walk
• Go to the beach
• Spending time with friends
• Sitting back and enjoying the view. (Anywhere even people watching can be fun)
• Having a cup of tea on my patio and listening to the birds singing
• Doing a favour for a friend
• Go to the library and borrow a book sit and read there for a while
• Write a blog about something you are passionate about (trust me that can take up plenty of time)
• Read other peoples blogs they can be very informative and uplifting
• Enjoy a hobby (join of group to enjoy this with)
• Visit some art galleries
• Go to a museum (look closely at things the time will fly)
• Do some decluttering (I had to throw that one in)

The list could just go on and on and there is no time for shopping with all this stuff to do and the pleasurable memories linger longer than any joy of acquiring another item that I will soon tire of and waste money on.

Here is the link that I promised at the start of my post.

100+ free things to make life happier

ITEM 157 OF 365 LESS THINGS

The box of baseball cards I am so happy to have found a home for on Freecycle

I would just like to say at this point that although Pack Wars can be a fun activity collector cards are really just a form of gambling. Any activity where you outlay money for an item with a value unknown in the hope that it will be worth more than what you paid for it is gambling.

My husband had a short business trip this week and I decided to go with him. We spent half a day travelling, enjoyed a leisurely lunch then spent the remainder of the day admiring the art at the National Galleries. It is nice to just wind down and enjoy each others company with no commitments or need for hurrying.

On the second day while he was attending his business conference I spent the day in the town centre of Canberra. I met my sister-in-law for lunch which was lovely but the rest of the time I spent just brousing around the shops.

I very soon discovered that I have very little or no interest in shopping any more and was really quite bored for most of the time. The only shop that really caught my eye was a local handmade crafts store at which I bought nothing but had a nice time checking out the handy work.

These days unless there is something specific I am on a mission to buy I have absolutely no interest what-so-ever in looking at mechandise I neither need nor admire. I feel liberated  both spiritually and financially. Decluttering your home is far more effective if there is little chance that it is just going to get filled up again with a fresh round of un-needed items.

I have found there are so many bonuses that I wasn’t expecting by doing this 365 day challenge. It has given me time to evolve and grow as a person as I have learned along the way not only from experience but from those who are on a similar journey like Joshua at Becoming Mininalist, contributers from over at Unclutter Forum, Megan at Sanity In Simplicity, leo at Zen Habits and many more. So thanks folks you have all been a great help as I hope I am being to others.

ITEM 148  OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another eBay item that sold for $20.00

From when I was quite a young child I was responsible for minor repairs to my own clothing even my school uniforms. This included  mending tasks such as sewing on buttons and stitching up  dropped hems.

My mother was a private dress maker who worked from home and I will always be grateful that she taught me to sew. I don’t use that skill to make clothes for myself or my family anymore but it is a skill that comes in very handy when an item of clothing needs repair.

I read an article this week from a woman who works in a thrift store who was astounded by the amount of clothing that comes through the store simply because people seem to have lost the skills or the will to do minor repairs. Hopefully these items are bought by someone willing to do the repair but at the same time the person who gave up this item of clothing would have gone out to a store buying a new item to take its place creating a supply and demand that the environment is struggling to keep up with.

In an attempt to help rectify this situation in my own small way today I am posting some links showing basic sewing skills and one that offers a large assortment of on-line sewing classes.

• How to sew a button
• How-to-turn-up-trousers
• E Sewing Workshop

You may wonder what this has to do with decluttering. To me decluttering isn’t just about getting stuff out of my house it is about choosing wisely about what you put into your house in the first place and getting the maximum amount of use out of those items. If that requires me to do the odd repair job along the way then it is well worth the effort.

ITEM 144 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Software that sold on eBay for $20

One of the most important lessons I have learned since taking on this challenge of 365 less things is that resisting the temptation from retail assault is not a futile exercise, it can be done. As I have mentioned before I hardly ever go shopping anymore except to buy my groceries and I am fine with that in fact I feel that I have the upper hand in some kind of battle of wills.

I did have a little head start or incentive if you like before I made the conscious decision stop spending on things that might ultimately become clutter. After living in the United States for seven years, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay the prices that the same products command here in Australia so I had already cut back.

When we took on the decluttering challenge one of the rules we made for ourselves was that if something new came into the house something else had to leave.  Since we are already busy picking and choosing what stays and what goes we really don’t want to make any more work for ourselves.

We have however upgraded our computer (a half tower for a mac mini) replaced a big stereo system with a new iPod docking station and bought an iPod touch so we don’t have to lug a laptop around with us on our next vacation but that is about it for the shopping this year. Even though this sounds like a big outlay the purpose behind these purchases aside from keeping up with technology, was to downsize the amount of space the old items were taking up in our home or our backpacks.

I have not bought any clothes,  accessory items, books, useless knick knacks, craft supplies, even birthday cards (I am using up my stocks or making them myself) or numerous other things that I used to buy that I have already forgotten I ever wanted.  It is amazing to realize how easy the transition was and although my friends might all think I am a scrooge I am very happy with the situation and don’t plan on changing back (I will not be assimilated).

ITEM 135 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another pair of ski pants sold on eBay for $19.50

The word gadget alone conjures up images of items with more of a novelty factor than any real practical use and for the purpose of this post it is meant to do so.

How many things on your “really don’t need or use” list come under the Single Function Gadget title. For example, my contribution for today to my 365 things are a set of plastic ice cubes. I am sure they were bought for their novelty factor but after using them both to keep liquids cool and in an icepack I really didn’t feel that they radiated the cold as well as the real thing.  I could find no science to back up my claim here but never-the-less I don’t find them useful and they are out of here.

Another thing I found quite useless are those silicon cup cake baking cups. What a pain they are to get clean. I soon went back to using the disposable paper cups.

If anyone out there has a product that they have found to be next to useless please contact me and I will make of page of  Single Function Gadgets as a warning to other innocent consumers.

ITEM 111 OF 365 LESS THINGS

You are probably wondering what Photo Deterrent means. It is a idea that just popped into my head yesterday while commenting to Anna at www.whoopsadaisy-anna.blogspot.com/ about her lovely shoes. I am sure this probably isn’t an original plan but I thought I was clever anyway.

Here is the plan…

• Choose an item you have that torments you because you never use it even though you spent quite a bit of your hard earned cash in it.
• It would be best if the item is one you are having a difficult time parting with because it is addictively appealing to you on some level but you know you probably won’t ever use.
• Now take a photo of it
• Print the photo in a wallet size format
• Put it in your purse/wallet in a very prominent position where you can see it every time you go to pay for things (even if you have to cover the photo of your sweetheart/children/husband etc).

At this point I think you clearly understand what Photo Deterrent means. Every time you go to make an ill advised purchase you will see that picture and at least think twice about what you are doing and hopefully put the item back and walk away.

If you find this photo is just causing you a lot of unneeded stress try this approach instead…

• Take a photo depicting a goal you intend saving for. Maybe an overseas trip, starting your own business, paying off your home loan.
• Put that in your wallet in a prominent position
• Hopefully that will inspire you to stop spending and  start saving.

The possibilities are endless. You could use a photo of the last “bargain” you bought that you still haven’t used yet or of  something you have multiples of that are completely un-necessary…

Any one of  these strategies could potentially deter you from acquiring any more un-necessary clutter. If however it is having the opposite effect for goodness sakes get rid of the photo.

Since I can’t for the life of me think of anything to get rid of today that has any relevance to the subject at hand I shall make today’s item this scary looking knife that my husband sold on eBay

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

To easily clean your microwave oven place a damp microfibre cloth on the plate, heat in microwave on high for about 30 seconds. When timer goes wait a couple of minutes for the steam that is generated from the heated cloth to soften any soiling on the inside of the oven then just wipe away.

How many of you have things lingering in your home that were bargains too good to pass on.
You know…

• that pair of shoes that really are a size to big but they were only $10 (you wore them once and they gave you such terrible blisters that you will never wear them again)

• the set of cutlery “they were just about giving away” that will come in handy when you have a dinner party for 12 even though your dining suite won’t accommodate more than 8.

• the tent that was half price at the camp shop (when you actually went there to buy a travel jacket) that you had to have for when you go camping one weekend soon (that was 4 years ago)

• that DVD you got for $5 on the clearance heap that you barely managed to tolerate the first ten minutes of which has been relegated to the deepest depths of the DVD drawer

Need I go on? There are no end of stories like these that I have heard or fallen prey to. There is a lesson to be learned here.

A bargain isn’t a bargain if you get little or no use out of it.

These things become like a house guest that won’t leave who’s just taking up space and not paying rent. You know they are there but you can’t bring yourself to tell them to leave but you feel guilty about letting them stay every time you come across them.

A couple of ways to avoid this trap are:-

• Don’t read the special catalogues
• Don’t check out the clearance bins in the shops
• Only go to the shop if there is something specific you are shopping for and stick to the plan.
• Never stop at garage sales
• Avoid seasonal sales

Sorry to all you shopaholics out their but admitting you have a problem is half the cure.

This is the DVD I mentioned above. Sorry Adam I really am a fan but not of this one. I love Mr Deeds though.

While looking in the linen closet to determine whether there were any old towels I could throw away my attention was drawn to some rolls of gift wrap and a box of gift bags. Which got me thinking about the chest full of other gift wrap paraphernalia in the closet down stairs

Now you may think what I am about to suggest is strange but I will explain my thinking as we go along.

I rarely buy gifts (This is strange to most people). I live a long way from most of my family, postage costs are ridiculous and they all can pretty much afford to buy anything they would want anyway, as can I.

Not to mention the fact that I am embarking on this lifestyle change of de-materialising and not bowing to the continual bombardment of the retail industry insisting my life would be so much richer with this product or that.

So I pulled the chest out of the closet and started to sort out the gift bows that have already been recycled several time during past Christmases and threw away all the ones that looked like they had been recycled too many time already. This reduced the number enough so that I could empty the chest into a small  drawer in the guest bedroom.

As we have been selling a number of items on eBay lately and have run out of brown paper to wrap boxes in for mailing I have decided  I will turn the gift wrap inside-out and use the white side for wrapping boxes  the next time I need to mail something. I have plenty of new and used gift bags I can use for any occasion when I might need them in the future.

I transferred my children’s keepsakes into the lovely chest I had emptied therefore eliminating one more box out of the shoe cupboard.

As a result of this exercise I have de-cluttered, recycled, re-designated (I love to live outside the box) and reshuffled creating a little more space.

I would just like you to know that my family and friends understand that gift buying  is not necessary to a loving relationship. My family would prefer I spent my money on the travel to come and visit them and my friends would rather enjoy a day together going to the movies,  having a meal together or something of that nature. I am not a complete scrouge.

Oh! By the way, I am going to a wedding this weekend and the couple, who have been living together for a few years, have the good sense to have a “Wishing Well” so people give money as the gift and they don’t end up with a house full of unneeded clutter.

These are the bows that found their way to the garbage today.