Meandering towards minimalism: How to begin?

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I was beginning to look into minimalism. I’m just feeling overwhelmed by clutter, and tired of spending money on things I don’t need. I always feel better when our home is orderly and tidy, so minimalism was starting to intrigue me.

Now, I have not read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, nor watched the show on Netflix (yet), but I’ve heard about it, of course. One of my favorite podcasts, By The Book, did an episode about it awhile back (oh goodness, I just looked and it was 2017, lol). But I know that the basic premise of going through your belongings and deciding what to keep is an important step.

About a month ago, I tackled my make-up drawers and bathroom cupboards. I hauled a huge bag of goodies to my sister’s house. Lipsticks I never used, perfume samples I didn’t want, foundations that just weren’t my shade anymore. It made my sister and nieces very happy, and took a big weight off my cluttered shoulders.

Next I went through my closet. I tried things on, asked myself when was the last time I wore them, and tried to just keep things that were my basic style (mostly black tops and jeans, lol). I’ve found that while I may like new trends, that doesn’t mean I’ll actually wear them. Since I wasn’t looking to sell my old clothes, I just filled bags to donate to the thrift store.

I’m currently reading The More of Less by Joshua Becker. I really like how he says that you can tailor your minimalism to your lifestyle and your needs. I’m not ready to get rid of EVERYTHING, lol. However, he is a pastor, and the book contains a lot of (what feel like) sermons. Not really my thing.

Anyway, now I was ready to look at my bookshelves. I will be the first to admit that I have A LOT of books. I love to re-read my favorites, and they’re all my favorites, lol. But I have never really gone through and purged them. I took a deep breath and decided to try. I was able to come away with a decent stack to sell at the used bookstore. They only took a few, so I donated the rest.

Perfume is another massive collection of mine. Mostly indie perfume oils, but some mainstream perfumes, too. I sniffed every. single. one. and ended up with a small box of fragrances to sell/give away. My goal is to keep only scents that I love and wear.

As with any project, it seems as though I’m just making a bigger mess, with all these sorting piles everywhere. But I’m hoping to have the majority of it done by the end of October.

I imagine that I will need to keep going through my stuff to weed out more and more things to give away, but I feel like I’m at least making a start.

Have you decluttered your home? What are your thoughts on minimalism? Tell me in the comments below!

Molly’s Mewsings is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. If you click on a link, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you. This commission will help keep this blog up and running.