Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year or so, you will have heard about the KonMari method of decluttering. Through her best selling book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying: A Simple, Effective Way To Banish Clutter Forever, Japanese author, Marie Kondo promises to transform your life one empty closet at a time.
Like many people, I took all this with a grain of salt. The book and I admit, a bit of peer group pressure 🙂 did spur me on to do a decent declutter of our home. Given that we live in a fairly small one bedroom apartment, i really did not think I would have much to “declutter”. Well I was WRONG!!!
Fairly ruthlessly, I decluttered wardrobes, shoe rack, book cases, kitchen cupboards and the pantry.
The KonMari book recommends you get rid of anything that “no longer brings joy to your life” That box of “one day I will fit into them” clothes most certainly did NOT bring joy, so listed on eBay they went. Clothes, shoes, books and heaps of tupperware that we have not used in ages all got listed on eBay. Over the course of about 8 weeks or so, my total “declutter wage” was just over $500!!!
The pantry declutter, left two groups…One small one of out of date foodstuffs that went in the bin 🙁 and a larger group of “stuff” we had bought for a long forgotten recipe, or had been given as gifts (jams, sauces, biscuits and relishes etc from hampers). These were all still perfectly fine and useable and a lot of them quite Gourmet (White Truffle infused oil ). I really did NOT want to waste these and have to throw out some substantial value. Looking at each product, I decided to roughly menu plan some uses for them.
We had some “interesting” dishes over the course of the few weeks until they were gone. Who knew that Mediterranean Tomato Chutney would make a truly delicious pizza sauce in place of regular tomato paste? or that Almond Butter in place of Peanut Butter is really good in satay sauce on chicken.
I do find, now that I have decluttered, the apartment is a lot easier to stay tidy. The bookcase/wall unit especially looks much more open without every shelf stuffed full of books. I have even managed to dig out some ornaments for display.
There are loads of stories on the internet of people who have found all sorts of “hidden treasure” through the act of decluttering. I did not find much actual cash ( no more than a few coins in the bottom of an old handbag) but people have found cash in pockets, old purses, and of course in the couch.
So get to it…start decluttering now. Just start with one place and do it well. List what you can on eBay, Gumtree, Facebook or Craigslist and let me know in the comments how much your “declutter wage” comes to.
