so i've recently found out that a lot of people were really interested in our downsizing journey. i mean, i posted about it a lot, but in the last few weeks i've been asked a lot of questions about it. so here's a little bit of the story of how & why we downsized! [i would tell you that everyone should downsize, but i don't believe that. if you're interested in downsizing & want some tips or someone to talk to, don't hesitate to reach out]
WHY WE DOWNSIZED
there are a few answers to this question.
the first answer is that we were given a LOT of random stuff when we got married (THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO GAVE US STUFF) but a lot of it wasn't really our style or taste. we actually still have a lot of those things because they are larger furniture & even after trying different arguments (on my part, i'm happy to give stuff away), it turns out you can't just have people sit on the floor when they visit. an empty house isn't a happy house. also, we didn't get rid of our hutches because when we moved apartments, we lost cupboard space, so we kept those for now. (but when we move again those will be up for grabs, so think about it!!!)
the second reason is that we just had a LOT of stuff that we didn't need. when we moved to our new apartment, an entire car load went to the DI AFTER we had sold a lot of stuff on facebook & sold things in at gamestop (if you have old video games/consoles that you can't sell on facebook-- check to see if you can sell them to gamestop!) and we constantly have a DI box or corner at our house (for the last 7ish months, I've had one of these) if i see something that we just don't use or don't love, it goes into the box-- if we end up needing it in the next week, it stays-- if not, it goes!
we wanted to save money. i read on fun, cheap, or free once that if you couldn't afford where you lived or wanted to save some extra cash-- MOVE. we had to wait until our contract was up (in order to avoid the breaking contract fees) and then we moved because we just weren't able to save a ton of money at our old apartment due to the higher price of rent. we also weren't using one of the rooms in our two bedroom apartment, so it seemed silly to be paying a good chunk of our income to have space we didn't use. we moved into a much smaller one bedroom apartment & we could not be happier! we love our new little home!
HOW WE DOWNSIZED & THINGS YOU CAN DO TOO
- we moved. not always ideal or possible, but if you can make it work for your family, it can relieve a TON of stress
- we sold things on facebook yard sale groups + on instagram
- we sold video games + old consoles to gamestop
- we gave things away + took things to the DI (local thrift store)
- we threw things away
- we printed photos into chatbooks to downsize on photo prints/to clear photos off of our phones + taped other prints into my journal
- i changed my wardrobe to a capsule wardrobe (i did this over time, but have LOVED the change!!)
- we gave away dishes + silverware that didn't match (where did they even come from anyway?!)
things you could probably get rid of too:
- cook books (we had like 12, so we kept the ones we actually use & gave the rest to DI)
- tee shirts + shirts you don't wear often & clothes that don't fit anymore
- old "tupperware" (ESPECIALLY if they are old cottage cheese containers... mom, i'm looking at you. ) or dishes that don't match
- cords. WHO ELSE HAS 500 CORDS THAT THEY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THEY GO TO?! just take those suckers to best buy, they have a fancy recycle bin for that stuff. (old phones too!! they're never going to be used again... trust me.)
- random papers. we have a divided folder specifically for important papers & all of our important papers go in there. the rest get tossed.
- blankets -- who else has 500 blankets? just me? cool.
we are still working on downsizing because it turns out that where we live is a LOT smaller than our old apartment & we just don't have the space for things. but i'm in heaven because as parker said yesterday, "we keep downsizing because i know you love downsizing." (hahahahhaha)
there are a few things that we are finding that we just don't use anymore and those go into the DI pile or into the sell on facebook or craigslist or ksl pile. slowly, but surely we are finishing all of this downsizing! it takes a while, but it is SO worth it! trust me, friends. it's worth it.