#100FewerThings update
Just about a year ago I set a goal to own 100 Fewer Things. I made it into a bit of a game (calculating the net total by subtracting anything that I acquired) and figured I would get through it by the end of February. I started off strong. By the end of January I had gotten rid of 44 things. And by the end of February, I was at 61. But things petered out at little from there. I still got rid of stuff and didn’t acquire too much, but I wasn’t trying that hard. At the end of August I was at 91, but in the fall I “acquired” more things than I got rid of and by mid-November, I’d lost a little ground and my net number was at somewhere around 89.
The good news is that I’ve made a big push recently and at this point, I’m way ahead of my goal. I got rid of the 32 things in the below photo (there are more than 32 in the photo, but some of those were new and I’m not counting them at all).
Plus, I sold my old dive BC and dive computer, sold my computrainer (that alone felt like a huge accomplishment) and gave away some other running gear (a hat and a couple shirts) that I’d gotten for free over time and never wore. I also gave an iPod speaker, a Nintendo Wii (with a few games), about 40 DVDs (nearly every DVD we own) and 50 books to a local shelter for homeless kids. And we gave another 40-50 books to the public library. Some of the DVDs and most of the books were Elizabeth’s, but even if I don’t count the books and DVD’s, that’s still a total of 43 things and puts me at 131 “fewer things”. (And that number doesn’t count the 120 pounds of paper (!) that I took to get shredded the other week or some other stuff around the house that we threw away or gave away.)
But I’ve also added a fair number of things recently, including two new swimsuits, Team NutriBullet gear (a hoody and two jerseys), a NutriBullet Sport extractor, a new Padres hat, two pairs of GORun 4’s, a dad book from Pete (Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, by Michael Lewis) and a button down shirt that I can wear when I want to look a little more like an adult. The total addition to my stuff was +17.
So, now it’s December 26 and I’m at a net number for the year of at least 114. It took me a lot longer than planned, but I did eventually hit my goal. And this project isn’t done. In the coming weeks (or months) I still have at least one bike that I should get rid of and I have a whole mess of scuba gear that I’m desperately trying to donate to a good scuba-related charity (which is much harder than I’d expected). Then, as we continue to make space for the baby there will certainly be more stuff to go. Speaking of that… I am definitely not counting all of the stuff that we now own for the baby!
The best thing about this project is that while a lot of what I’ve gotten rid of were little things like old t-shirts or clothes that no longer fit or books that I’ve read, some of the things were harder, either because it took effort to sell or because it was harder to part with. But I don’t miss any of it. And frankly, there’s more that can go. It’s also been nice to have it in the back of my head that whenever I want something or am given something, I think about how it will affect my net total. It’s made me more careful about buying things and less apt to keep “free” stuff that I didn’t really want in the first place!