In October, I wrote about simplicity, something that seems to be almost lost in our culture. Because we will be moving out of our apartment soon, we’ve been simplifying our belongings.

Even with getting rid of probably half of our stuff, we still have so much more than we need! I hope some of the tips we used in simplifying can be useful to you.

Clothes: I was able to get rid of over half my clothes! The biggest thing I had to keep in mind while sorting was not “Do I like this?” or “Have I ever worn this?” but rather “What are my favorites?”

By sticking to favorites, I don’t feel like I have fewer nice things to wear, but there’s less decision-making because I know I like everything in my closet.

You may have heard of the 333 challenge. This is a challenge to have 33 articles of clothing for 3 months. This includes all outerwear including shoes and jewelry.

I decided to approach it differently, because this challenge only includes work apparel. I got the impression that it’s generally for stylish city people. And living in the midwest, I really need different clothes for each season.

Instead of having a total number I was aiming for, I went with a minimalist approach for each type of clothing. For example: 6 dresses, 4 sweaters, 9 T-shirts, etc. Because I don’t have to dress up to go to work every day, my goals were 4-6 in the “nice” categories and 5-10 in the “casual” categories. This worked well for me!

In getting rid of many of my clothes, I took a large bag to our local consignment store, so we can make a few dollars from what we don’t need. There are also online consignment stores such as thredup. But they are very picky about what they will take!

Books: We own a lot of books, and a lot of good books. But over the years, we acquired books that aren’t of interest anymore. When it came to sorting our bookshelves, we asked: “Is this a book we would re-read, reference, or recommend (or loan out)?” If not, it might be a fine book. It might even be a good book. But we probably don’t need to own it.

I looked into selling some of our used books on a site like sell back your book. Depending on the books you have, it may be worth it, but when I put in about 20 of our books, it said I would make about $2 so I decided it wasn’t worth it.

Furniture: Furniture is hard because it is so big. So when you’re moving, you don’t want to buy everything new, because that would get expensive, but you also don’t want to haul everything around and then realize it doesn’t fit in your new place. Because we will be in so much transition over the next little bit, we decided to get rid of most of our furniture. We are storing a few especially nice smaller things like a bookshelf, rocking chair, and desk, and many of the nice big things like our couch and table we are giving to our families, where we will still get to enjoy them at their homes. 🙂 By giving furniture to family and friends you can be such a blessing! Most of what we have was given to us for free and we have been so grateful!

Kitchen: We have acquired many many dishes, appliances, containers, pots and pans, and I have used most of them! However, we only have so much space, and while we are camping on the land over the summer, we use a lot fewer things than in a regular kitchen. While sorting dishes, I considered, “How many of these do we actually need?” It is helpful to own more than two bowls, two plates, two cups, etc. But depending on your family size, do you need 20-30 plates?

With pots, pans, and appliances, I again had to ask what are my favorites, and what can I do without. For example, I love my instant pot, I use it multiple times a week. I also had a little slow cooker that I used occasionally. The instant pot has a slow cooker setting, so I decided to keep that and get rid of the slow cooker.

Cast irons are also great. I now have three– a small, a medium, and a large. You can do almost anything in them– cornbread, eggs, stir fry, grilled cheese, steak, and more. By using cast iron, I can get rid of a lot of other appliances and pans.

Other: While clothes, books, kitchen, and furniture are categories that contain many of our belongings, there are a lot of other things that we own. Camping supplies, sentimental items, decorations, tools, craft supplies, and so on.

A few good questions to ask while sorting through random possessions are: Have we ever used this? Do we know what this is? We finally found this, is it something we missed? If not, throw it out!

Another good thing to consider is: Is this something we will use in the next 6 months to a year? If it’s not something you use every year, it is likely not worth your space or bandwidth.

Now to be fair, there may be some things that we won’t use in the next few months that are worth keeping. For us this included things like Baby J’s newborn clothes. We want to keep them for future babies, but we won’t need them this year. There are also things that are seasonal, like Christmas lights, that are nice to have even if not used all the time.

There are also things with significant sentimental value. Almost anything can have sentimental value, and when we start considering throwing things away, we can be pretty touchy about what is valuable.

Pictures and journals should almost always be kept. These are things we will appreciate later!

High school trophies and knick-knacks from activities we were in might not be worth space, especially if there are pictures and stories to remember these enjoyable times.

As for grandma’s doilies and dishes, keep in mind that a hundred years ago, people often had one valuable possession passed down for generations. This might be a tea set, a turkey platter, a necklace, or a wedding dress. But nowadays, all of us have too much stuff. Think about what actually has value and memory and keep one or two items.

What does simplicity and minimalism look like in your life? I hope some of how we simplified can help you decide what to get rid of and what to keep in your own household. There is freedom in not having your life cluttered with belongings, and if you give your things away, you might make someone else’s day by giving them just what they were looking for!