Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm currently repacking and reducing a lot of my stuff for my upcoming move. We're going to be living in our friends furnished one bedroom condo (no garage) for the following year. Most of our stuff will be in storage here in Ontario.

Since our friend has limited storage in her condo, we have to be very particular to what we bring. I like living "simple" regardless, but it's got me thinking of how much I can reduce. Unfortunately for me, I get attached to a lot of stuff: my laptops name is Walter, my camera is Pig and I saved the tag for my second hand sperm whale plush, Spermy (in the back), so it can be hard to get rid of some stuff.

A while ago, I read an article on Treehugger about a man who was going to reduce his life to 100 items. Granted, I didn't dig too deeply, but I wondered if my laptop, mouse (mouse + wireless hub) and mouse pad would be one item or three? Would the cats with toys, bowls, etc. be exempt? What about gardening stuff?


So - with spring in the air, have you done some stuff purging? How many items do you think you could live with? How many items do you estimate you have now? What items could you do without? How would you group your items? (For example - would my laptop with accessories be one item or would they all be individually counted?) Would you exempt items - like books, tools or jewelry?


http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/100-thing-challenge.php

http://guynameddave.typepad.com/david_michael_bruno//100-thing-challenge.html

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/6-easy-tips-for-living-with-100-items-or-less.html




YES, I sleep with a plush whale named Spermy and a plush orca named Willy, who coincidentally only has one eye. dramallama

I just moved from MA to FL and could only bring what would fit in 1 checked bag, 1 carry on, and 2 boxes (not counting the boxes that I shipped my fish and tortoise in, leaving them would be irresponsible. Also, one of those 2 was books+movies, not sure if they count.) Out of 21 years of stuff, I had to weed it all into that. It felt good.

I had to get rid of a lot of my stuff when I moved across the state to go to school. The placed I moved to was a TON smaller than where I came from (which wasn't big to begin with.) Anyway, I found that in the smaller place I didn't need most of the stuff that I had. No need for table runners when you have a tiny table. No need for most of my rugs, lamps, or furniture. I ended up using most of my old clothes as packing materials. (Actually, I took all of my towels and t-shirts and used them to pack my dishes and other fragile stuff- really saved money and space.) I converted all of my CDs to digital files, and scanned most of my photos. I realized that much of my "stuff" was obsolete: boom box, land-line phone, Polaroid camera. They got boxed up and left in storage. I didn't even take my watches! It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate over the years. Some of the stuff that seemed so essential when I got it I realized I just hadn't really used in years.