This is a guest post from Crystal of Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: A Personal Financial Blog about the Next Financial Step. It’s an open fiscal diary and a personal finance blog rolled into one that is looking to get as many people involved as possible.
Minimizing is in. I’ve seen three different articles in two weeks about getting rid of clutter and minimizing your junk. I am personally trying to declutter our home this month as well. BUT, I do have my limits.
I want my house to be rid of the actual junk…the stuff that just takes up space that I just haven’t Craigslisted yet. For example, I want to get rid of our old GPS, cell phones, my wedding dress and petticoat, and two boxes of Nintendo games and White Wolf magazines that we were unable to sell for a friend. I’ve already successfully sold a few things and am working on the rest.
I don’t want to get rid of our books, DVDs, board games, or Magic: The Gathering cards. Those are things that we enjoy or will enjoy again in the future. Do we read our books every year? Nope. Do we frequently watch our DVDs? Nope. But when I want to read the whole Harry Potter series again, I know where they are. When I want to bring The Princess Bride, Paranormal Activity, or Terminator 2 to someone’s house, I can easily pluck them off the shelf.
We own the board games and Magic cards for much the same reasons. Some games get played all the time (like Power Grid), but others only come up once in a while (like Merchants of Venus). That doesn’t mean we want to get rid of Merchants of Venus…we’ll just hold on to it until it’s requested again.
In short, I want to own these things for the ease factor and because I enjoyed them enough to want to have them as part of my life.
I just hope that the true minimalists (like these people) will not accidentally cause a bunch of people to go on a crazy cleaning spree and regret it a month later when they are re-buying the hobby gear they just sold or the clothes they just donated.
Enjoy these other posts at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff:
How We Chose to Buy Our Home
Diminishing Inheritance Returns
Let’s Get Controversial: Hiring Help