Over the past few years I’ve been putting a huge effort into decluttering our home. We live in an open concept loft apartment where everything is on display and there’s very little storage, so keeping items we think we might need someday isn’t an option. While we don’t have that much stuff, probably much less than the average household, it feels like a lot in a smaller home.
I really had to take the time to think about what items will serve us well long term. Sometimes it’s just hard to part with things that have been gifted to you by someone you love or when you combine households with your partner and you have duplicates of items the struggle is real to downsize. It’s a process and that’s why it can take years to find a good balance and now I think I’ve finally found that balance so I’m here to share my secret (not so secret) resource that helped me feel okay with giving items away.
I used to declutter the typical way of putting things into boxes and carting them off to my local thrift store never thinking of them again. While this is okay, it’s not necessarily okay for our environment. I recently learned that a lot of those items, especially clothing, end up in the garbage because there’s just too much for people to sort through or they can’t be sold. This article shares a lot more about this topic.
So I needed to find an alternative solution that made me feel good about the items I was getting rid of, knowing they’d actually get used rather than end up in the landfill. This is when I discovered the Buy Nothing Project. https://buynothingproject.org/
The Buy Nothing Project is one of the only reasons I’m still on Facebook, because that’s where the groups are hosted. You search for your local community on Facebook. For example: “buy nothing Vancouver” and ask to join the group. Once you join you can post an item to “gift” and whoever is interested will comment, then you select a “winner” for the item. It brings me so much joy knowing the items I’m giving away are going to someone in my community that really needs it. Sometimes people will ask for a specific item and people in the group will reply and say they have one to gift. It really connects micro neighbourhoods and reduces waste and most of all stops people from buying new items.
This group really takes the guilt about giving away items you were gifted but rarely or never used. It also makes me feel good about giving away things I’ve held onto for years that have just been sitting storage. I’m pretty sure we all have a box or 2 in our home that’s filled with mystery items.
In this past year I have given away so many items, now my cabinets are only filled with items we use. I’m not saying our home is perfect, there are a few spaces we need to work on, boxes of old toys from childhood that are now “vintage” is my personal struggle. It’s definitely an ongoing process and a promise to yourself to keep up the habit of not buying items we don’t really need and if we do buy something, it’s replacing a broken item. I can’t say we’re minimalists, but we definitely live more simply than most and this makes both of us very happy knowing what we have is enough.
I highly recommend joining your local Buy Nothing Group whether you’re looking to gift items to your community or you’re in need of an item and would prefer to avoid buying new. I recently got a puzzle from my local group and when I’m done the puzzle I’ll regift it back to someone in the group, continuing to spread joy.
It’s a great place to connect with your neighbourhood. All the details are on the website https://buynothingproject.org/find-a-group/
Support your local community, it will bring you and others so much joy.
I am a member of Buy Nothing SF! Have gifted many things and have received wonderful items for my classroom that otherwise would have been too costly or difficult to find!
So nice to see your name here Michelle, hope you’re doing well.
I love these groups so much. It really is just what the world needs in 2020 and going forward.