The Anti-Hoarder

I love watching Hoarders on Netflix.  It's therapeutic in some evil way.  The closest I ever came to being a hoarder was living with one.  My mother.  As a kid we had a lot of useless stuff.  I decided at the age of 12 to rebel against clutter and haven't looked back.

In the last month I've scanned hundreds of pages of documents and shredded the hard copies, taken two trips to a thrift store to drop off donations, and am meeting with a friend today to sell a few things.

I'm coming ever so close to having a true paperless home.  I have a safe full of documents I know I need to keep - my birth certificate, investment notes for a class action lawsuit, notarized deeds... too bad I can't just make electronic copies of those as well.

I've given away about 1/3 of my wardrobe in the last month.  When you consider I've spent a whopping $105 on clothing in the last 2 years you'd think I had a bare minimum set of clothes already, but that's not the case.  I could shed another 1/3 of my clothes if I really wanted to, perhaps 1/2 if I tried hard enough.  I keep hanging onto barely worn pants that will fit ...when I lose 25 pounds.  It's hard to part with those because I would feel like I'm giving up on ever losing weight.

Furniture?  Let me take an inventory:  In the bedroom I have my bed, a dresser and a bedside table.  In the kitchen there is a table with four chairs.  In the living room I have two cheap IKEA chairs, a small bookshelf, a small IKEA table that holds a lamp, and a small TV cart I use for my laptop and projects I am currently working on.  In the second bedroom there is a filing cabinet which holds office supplies I've gotten for free, a few small electronics and photo albums.  There is also a little desk in there I would like to sell.

I still feel the urge to purge.  I have an excessive amount of personal hygiene products, almost all of which I obtained free.  I imagine I could lose a few cooking utensils without missing them.  And still lots and lots of clothes.  

It feels great to shed unwanted possessions, particularly when I can sell them and use the money to pay debt. I just wish it were that easy to shed unwanted pounds!