The Year of Less: The Completion of My February Purge

Happy Leap Day and greetings from Chicago! I'm here for a couple of days for work, then head to Madison for a couple more days, and return to Minneapolis late on Thursday. It's going to be a whirlwind week but it's good to be traveling again as I enjoy conversing with clients and changing my schedule up!

As I mentioned in January, I spent the month of February focusing on getting rid of things in my house that I no longer need or use. My goal was to get rid of 435 items. When I started the month, I knew there were a lot of things I could get rid of but I ended up getting rid of more than I thought I would, mostly because I had soooo many books to get rid of. The total number of items that have left my house is 550 items! I actually ended up getting rid of a bit more than that as I stopped keeping track after I counted all of the books I would be getting rid of and had exceeded my goal.

I kept a detailed list, with columns totaling what was donated, sent to thred up or thrown away. I also kept track of what area of the house the items came from. The majority of my 550 items were books (272), but here is a breakdown of the rest of what I donated:

- 175 articles of clothing/jewelry/bags/shoes
- 46 items from my kitchen
- 23 office/organizational items
- 18 bathroom items
- 11 decor items
- 5 miscellaneous items

Of those 550 items, 392 were donated, 137 were thrown away, and 21 were sent to thred up.

Phil helped me load up my car with the 392 items I donated. I was shocked that we managed to fit 2 book cases, allll the bags of books, and 2 boxes of household goods/clothing into my little Honda Accord. Phil said it was a real-life game of tetrus. He wins boyfriend of the year for helping me schlep all those items to my card and bringing them to goodwill - and for standing in line at the post office on a Friday night to drop off my thred up bag while I sat in my packed car with a heavy box of donations on my lap.

It was surprisingly easy to get rid of all of these items. I thought I'd have a harder time going through my bookcases, but once I got going it wasn't very hard to determine what to keep and what to get rid of. This post on book riot really reflected how I approached my decision about what to keep or what to get rid of.

Truth be told, there's probably still more things I could get rid of as I didn't even get to the bins under my bed but I'll tackle that at another time over the next couple of months. In the mean time, I feel good about getting rid of a car load of stuff as it will make my next move so much easier!

My February Purge: Half-point Check-in

Greetings and happy Tuesday! As of today I am half-way through my February purge in terms of days. I've gotten rid of a total of 120 things as of yesterday. Of those 120 items, 65 were thrown away, 38 were put in a goodwill donation box, and 17 will go to thredUp at the end of the month.

I've done plenty of purging in the past, especially leading up to the moves I've made, but this purge is different than others as I've been more critical of what I own and why I own it. For example, I've packed and moved my collection of coffee mugs numerous times without giving thought to whether I needed all 16 of them. When the February purge rolled around, though, I thought about whether I truly needed 16 coffee mugs when I am the only coffee-drinker in the house (Phil doesn't and will never drink coffee). The answer was no. So I kept the 8 mugs that match my dishes plus 2 gifted coffee mugs that I love, and brought 1 other gifted mug to work to replace the worn out mug I've been using for the last several years.

Aside from mugs, I've gotten rid of a range of things such as expired spices, saute pans that I no longer use, clothes, jewelry, and shoes. I've tried to go through my house room by room and I usually choose the items I want to get rid of and put those items in a pile versus deciding which items to get rid of each day. Right now I am working on my bedroom closet. I feel like I will be in there for many days as I have a big stack of clothes to get rid of as well as a box of jewelry and shoes.

While I still have 315 items to get rid of over the next 14 days, I'm feeling confident that I'll be able to make it through to the end of the month because I know that there are many books I am going to be getting rid of. While I got rid of a lot of books last January, the truth of the matter is that my bookcases don't really reflect my current reading interests, so many of them will be donated so someone else can read them. At the end of the challenge, I will own far fewer books, but they will be books that I truly love.

I haven't been good about taking before and after photos, but I did take one of the area where I hang my necklaces.

It feels good to see multiple spaces in my house look like my necklace rack - less cluttered and reflective of what I use and need!