Absolutely nothing else we say in this book can have such a liberating effect on your life. We like testimonials, and here's one quoted in its entirety from a "Dear Abby" column (San Francisco Chronicle, March 11, 1991):
DEAR ABBY: I related to the letter about a husband who was a pack rat because I'm one too. After years of bachelorhood, I married a woman who'd throw out the newspaper while I was still reading it.Taken from the Dear Abby column by Abigail Van Buren © 1991 Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
In the fourth year of our marriage I was sent overseas, leaving my wife, who was pregnant. When I completed the tour, I was reassigned to the Pentagon, and my wife had the thankless task of selling our home and packing and moving us to the Washington, D.C., area. She handled all of this like a real pro.
A year later we were entertaining guests, and I told the story of our move, bragging about how well my wife had handled everything alone. She casually remarked, "Yes, It gave me the opportunity to throw out all the junk Bill had been carrying around all these years." I was shocked to hear her say this, as she'd never mentioned it before, so I asked, "And just what did you throw out?" She calmly replied, "What are you missing?" Try as I did, I couldn't identify a single item I missed. Then she said, "You tell me what you're missing, and I'll tell you whether or not I threw it out."
Everyone (including me) had a good laugh at my expense, but it certainly proved her point.
So, all you pack rats, clean out your closets and drawers, put the junk in boxes, then take the whole lot to one of those storage lockers. After paying the storage bill for several years, you will be amazed at how much you can live without.
--BEEN THERE AND LEARNED
DEAR BEEN THERE AND LEARNED: As incredible as it may seem, public auctions are held to sell furniture, clothing, furs and valuable jewelry that were in storage for many years and never claimed. The owners either couldn't pay the storage bill, or they died having forgotten that their property had been stored.
--Abby
It is encouraging to read about someone who has seen the light at the end of the (cluttered) tunnel. We would have advised him to skip the step about paying for a storage locker for a few years. Besides saving the money, he wouldn't have to drag all the stuff back home to have a garage sale.
There's an abundance of opportunities to acquire things in our lives. We are invited to do so by every imaginable source of advertisement; by our perpetual comparisons of our possessions with those of our friends, relatives, and neighbors; and by our own private insecurities and habits. We feel like we're building our nest. The more things we can add to our nest, the more secure and successful we feel.
Once an item makes it into our nest, a metamorphosis takes place as it becomes "ours," and its value is completely transformed. For example, before a crystal decanter becomes our possession, if it should be broken or lost it would barely qualify as an accident. Once we get it into our home, however, if it is broken we regard it as a disaster. Obviously this has something to do with how much we paid for it, but it can acquire its own almost inexplicable value, which involves much more than money alone.
Trouble is, acquiring everything you have the chance to is just not worth it. The price paid is a lifetime of being loaded down by things we wouldn't miss if they were taken away from us: things we couldn't find if we needed them, things we don't even remember we have unless we see them, unused things that ultimately crowd out the necessary things we actually use. Don't wait for that to happen—do it of your own free will now.
The Cost of Storing Your Things
One major incentive to declutter is the expense of maintaining all that stuff. You'll be amazed when you figure out the actual cost of keeping it. First calculate how much you're paying for each square foot of your home by dividing the square footage by the monthly rent or mortgage. For example, if you live in a 1,500-square-foot house and have a $1,500 monthly payment, that's obviously $1 per square foot per month. Now multiply by how many square feet are devoted to storage. This can be an eye-opening experience. Let's say you've let an entire room slowly drift into a "junk" room even though it was originally intended as a guest bedroom or a sewing room. You've got 100 square feet or more devoted to storage in that one room alone. So you're paying 100 x $1 = $100 a month for the privilege of having a junk room. That might be worth it if you were storing prized and valuable possessions.
Unfortunately, this monthly $100 bill is for storing items you don't even look at—unless you take a peek when you open the door to toss something else in the collection. Worse yet, just knowing what lurks behind that door nags you silently. You also have a crisis if you do have a guest. And your sewing plans are on indefinite hold—like perhaps for this lifetime.
A "junk" room is only the most obvious place to look. For many homes, it's just the tip of the iceberg. Consider some of the other fertile places around the house to discover caches of junk. And add their cost to the first figure you came up with. For example:
- How many square feet of each closet in your home are used to store things you don't use? It's not nice to remind you of all the clothes in those closets that no longer fit. Let's just say they're too large, shall we, and leave it at that. Or maybe you don't wear them because they've gone out of style. With luck, they'll come back in style in thirty years, but do you think you'll actually wear those musty antiques?
- What about under the beds? Gifts you've received that you're never going to use. Perfectly fine other things that are "too good to throw away." Broken things.
- Look in drawers, but don't count the things you use every day—or even once a year. What about the linen from your grandmother for a table that wouldn't even fit into your dining room? Linen with spots, linen with holes, linen you're saving for your kids. (They don't even like the brand-new things you get them for their birthday and Christmas. Lord knows what they'll want with things you don't even know what to do with.) And then there are the drawers bursting with unused blouses, T-shirts, socks, underwear, incomplete bed sheet sets, worn-out towels, photographs, calendars, college papers, postcards, ancient mail, maps, newspapers, matchbooks, and mystery items.
- Bookshelves filled with books you haven't looked at in years—if ever. Or with porcelain frogs. Or with liquor decanters. We're not opposed to collections per se; it's just that it's sometimes difficult to appreciate the beauty of a porcelain frog if there are thirty-seven of them.
- Don't forget books that are stored in places other than bookshelves, including unloved cookbooks, outgrown children's books, and unused reference books.
- Appliances and gadgets you never use. They're often in the kitchen drawers and cabinets, but don't forget the extra set of speakers or the foot massager, no matter where you have them stashed.
- The freezer. You have things in there that no one in the house knows about or can identify anymore—let alone would be willing to eat.
- The garage, carport, basement, or attic—junk heaven. Tires to cars you no longer own. Athletic equipment such as the exercise bike that started in the living room, migrated to the bedroom, and is now relegated to dusty solitude. Dead clothes that no longer fit in your bulging closets. Bed parts. Derelict lawn furniture or equipment. Pieces of lumber left over from a project half completed in 1976. If by chance you can no longer fit your car or cars into your garage or carport, don't forget to add the additional depreciation caused by storing it outside. And add the square footage of the garage to your total storage bill.
Here are some guidelines for deciding what should be tossed and what should be kept. (When we say "tossed," we are including giving it away or selling it, of course.)
Popular Excuses for Keeping Things Forever
If you aren't actually using something, why allow it to complicate your home? I have a section of my desk drawer that is reserved just for pens. It's always overflowing. The problem is, if my favorite pen isn't there, I will turn the house upside down looking for it rather than use any of the pens that are stuffed into this drawer. Solution? Save the favorite pen plus three or four spares and toss the rest. Now there's room for adding something to the drawer should the occasion arise. And the drawer even closes easily, for the first time in years. If you have several pairs of eyeglasses with outdated prescriptions, give them away. (Several charities solicit them.) It's different if you use something occasionally. (Christmas ornaments are a good example.)
Give your grown kids' things back to them. If you do, maybe they'll learn to deal with clutter a couple of decades earlier than you did. The same goes for your friends, neighbors, or other relatives for whom you are storing things.
Please don't try the old excuse "It's too nice to throw away." Especially if it's so nice, give it to someone who will use it and appreciate it.
If it's broken, fix it or toss it. If it's ripped, have it mended. If it doesn't fit, have it altered. Don't put it anywhere just "for now" and keep it in a perpetual holding pattern.
If you find a screw or have one left over after a project, don't start saving them. It will drive you crazy. Usually when you buy something that needs a screw, it will have one included. If it doesn't, you can get the exact number of appropriate screws while you're at the store. That's much faster and easier than picking through all your saved screws (which over time have a way of starting to get nails mixed in with them, plus a few tacks, push-pins, washers, picture hangers, and other small, sharp, and rusty objects.) And even if you do search your collection and ultimately find three of the screws you need, the project will probably call for four of them.
Since most households do have a need of a nail or a screw occasionally, just remember that almost any method of acquiring and storing them is preferable to the one-at-a-time-whenever-you-happen-upon-one method and then adding it to the little box or mayonnaise jar full of them.
Save the stereo box for thirty days. If the stereo hasn't broken by then, discard the box. (If you bought it by mail order, save it for the full warranty period.) Unless you're planning on moving (have the date set, etc.) don't keep the box "because you'll need it when you move." That's true, but it may be years away. You or the moving company can use another box when the time comes.
Rule 1 still counts if you don't know what an item is. My mother will save something even though she's not at all sure what it is. She'll convince herself that it fell out of her refrigerator or something else vital and that if she throws it away, she will only then discover where it should have gone. If she weren't my mother, I would point out to her that she has lived for over sixty years. If she hasn't learned what something is by now, there is no particular likelihood she will do so in the next sixty years.
Rule 1: When in doubt, throw it out.
Rule 2: Use it or lose it.
Rule 3: Efficiency counts, so store things accordingly.
Rule 4: Handle something once.
Rule 5: Recycle it.
Rule 6: Pick a number and stick with it.
Rule 7: Use a file cabinet.
Rule 8: Do Something.
Rule 9: A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Rule 10: Items displayed in the house have to pass a test.
Rule 11: Don't do things "later."
Rule 12: Label things.
Rule 13: Call in a professional.