A New Trick To STOP Impulse Buying

Upon arriving in Champaign, IL we had to do some shopping.  We needed some food to eat, some toiletries, cleaning supplies and such, so I took a trip to Meijer.  Back in Israel, there were zero mega/box stores with everything you could possible need or want in a lifetime under one roof.  I took a shopping cart and with list in hand started marching up and down the aisles.  I was determined NOT to stray from the list. But then out of the corner of my eye, a cute vase, a salt and pepper shaker set, dishes, side tables, a cute top, etc.  It got to the point that I actually muttered under my breath, "Sometimes I hate America".  Now, don't get me wrong, I love America.  I love my country dearly and it does feel good to be back after a year abroad.  What I meant by the comment was, "I hate American consumerism".  I hate that they know how to make me WANT everything, even though I don't actually need it.  With an empty apartment awaiting me, and all my belongings in boxes and in disarray, of course I wanted new, shiny, pretty things that I was under the impression would make me feel better, more at home and more stable.

So as I stood there in the middle of Meijer I remembered something.  I have a smartphone.  I pulled it out and started taking pictures of all the items that interested me.  I would go home, finish unpacking, organizing and settling in with the items I already own and take some time to see if I would have use for any of the items at the store.  It's been a week and a day and I have been back to Meijer to get a few more food items, but I have not felt the need to purchase any of those extras.  I was able to take the images home with me, show them to my husband and my friends and took the time to process and think about if those things would make my home a better place to live or not.

Some example shots of what I thought I wanted:

The next time you go shopping and find your eyes starting to wander go ahead and pull out your phone or a camera and snap a photo of the things that strike your fancy.  Take a few days to mull it over and only then go back to retrieve it if you still cannot stop thinking about it!  Shopping consciously and deliberately is key to achieving a more simplified and clutter free home.

I hope this tip is helpful!  If you have other ideas please share in the comments!

Moving Overseas - The Minimalist Attempt

What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been! I apologize for not writing, I started to write some posts about the moving process, but I became too overwhelmed to continue.  It is amazing how much stuff can induce stress.  Going through this second move made me thankful that we had been simplifying our possessions all year, but also made me determined to cut down even more.  My goal with this post is to give a recap of how we went about downsizing, packing and moving over to the U.S. and in future posts I will highlight some of my strategies to remain and work on becoming even more minimalist as we set up our new home!

Back in Israel we managed to sell/donate/give away all of our furniture and housewares.  In a matter of 1 week we donated 7 bags of clothes and linens to charity.  We had trouble finding charities that would take our housewares and we had very limited time, so I created a facebook page and posted pictures for friends and family to view and claim items.  We made deliveries and gave our things new homes.  We were encouraged to leave the remaining items outside the apartment building, and sure enough our things were scooped up incredibly fast by neighbors and passer-bys.  One woman who took many of our kitchen supplies had been through an apartment fire the week before and lost everything, we were thrilled to be able to give her our things.

Even after my past post: "Paper Clutter - It Happens To Us All", I still found we had way too much paper to attempt to take to the U.S.  I spent 2 hours sifting through our paper, we made one binder of things to leave at my inlaws, one binder to take with us, and a stack of papers to scan and keep digital copies.

After all the sorting, purging, organizing and packing, all our items fit into 4 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, 1 purse and 1 computer bag.  We shipped 1 large and 1 medium box of items to our new place.

The contents of our suitcases included clothes and shoes, but also a Queen sized down comforter, 2 pillows, duvet set and 8 place-settings of dishes.  Items we shipped included 2 robes, 4 sweatshirts, long sleeves shirts, 2 light coats and some smaller housewares we love and wanted in our new home.  Overall I feel good about the amount we traveled with.  We were able to condense and fit everything into a sedan once we reached stateside.  We do need furniture and other home supplies in our new place, and I will report on those decisions in a future post.

In conclusion: everything arrived safe and sound and we are setting up quite fast in our new space since we do not have a ton to put away, but more on that later!  The 2nd international move in 1 year is officially complete! Phew! We made it! Cheers to that!

T-Shirt Experiment Results

After a few weeks (I didn't really keep count) of hiding my husband's 7 t-shirts he only remembered and wanted to keep one of them.  After reviewing the others that he had forgotten, he agreed to let them go to charity!  In that very moment he also agreed to go through his dress shirts and ended up tossing 5 of them!  We also took this opportunity to start packing up our clothes which is proving to be much easier than last time.  Let me know if you embark on your own T-Shirt experiment and I will feature you in a future post!

Hubby saying goodbye to his T-Shirts!

A Green Discovery: Glass Recycling!

So I LOVE being proved wrong when it comes to recycling limitations. In past post "Reduce-Reuse-Recycle - Green Minimalism!" I stated that Israel does not recycle glass.  Well, on a bus ride recently we discovered that the neighboring suburb started a glass-recycling program!  This is pretty big and could not have come at a better time.  With our upcoming move we were going to have to throw away the collection of glass jars we have used for storage.  We were more than happy to load up our nifty little cart and took a short 10 minute walk to recycle our glass.

While it took a little more effort, we were excited that we could recycle the jars instead of throwing them in the trash, making our move a little more environmentally friendly.  What recycling programs do your communities offer? Any exciting and innovating programs?  What do you do to live a greener and simpler life at home?  Let me know in the comments!

Gallery of Misc Stuff

As we prep to move out of our apartment in ONE week I have gone through all of our stuff and decided what to keep, what to sell, what to donate and what to toss into the garbage.  Even though we have done a great job this year at simplifying our possessions we still amassed quite the pile. I collected all the miscellaneous stuff that we do not plan to keep, or have not used or really enjoy and made a gallery on our coffee table:

Some of these things like the picture frames and vases we greatly enjoyed, but are not going with us to the states.  Others were gifts from friends over the years that gave us joy but are now ready to move on. As we went through our things we asked ourselves the following questions:

1) Is this item useful? - And not theoretically useful, but have we actually used the item?
2) Does this item bring me joy? - Does the item bring back good memories and do we love having it in our lives?
3) Is it replaceable? - Sometimes the answer to 1 & 2 are yes, but it may still not be worth it to try and pack it up and take it back overseas.  Some items I decided were not replaceable were our dishes that we LOVE and received as wedding gifts.  I think of the people who gifted us these dishes every day and it brings me joy.  Even if the actual dishes are physically replaceable, I know it would pain me to know they weren't the items gifted by my beloved friends and family.

We will keep the gallery open for friends and family to look through and at the end of the week we will throw or donate the rest.  I have been hunting for organizations that do pick-ups from private homes, and hope to find one this week and save a few trips by car since we need to borrow each time.  Wish me luck as we near the finish line!

Do you have any moving tips and tricks?  Good moving stories for inspiration and motivation?  Please share in the comments!

For the Love of Shoes

Like any good girly girl, I love my shoes!  I will suffer through blisters just to rock an awesome pair of heels. I would tell myself that I wasn't a shoe hoarder, and I'm not THAT bad.  Then I lined up my shoes:

This line up is only what I currently have here in Israel at 16 pairs, last week I had already donated 2 pairs, meaning I had 18 pairs.  My mom back in the states graciously agreed to count the pairs I have in my closet at home at 9 pairs adding up to a total of 27 pairs of shoes.  Now, some people may find this number low, I find it entirely too high.  Especially considering the fact that I want to simplify my things and only keep what I love and enjoy and actually wear.  So here are the criteria I set for myself to cull my shoe collection:

1) Is the shoe broken/over worn/ in disrepair?:  Examples are that the soles are entirely worn down or the lining is ripping out.  I had a pair of sandals I loved but had lost the strap to one of them 3 years ago.  I had tried to replace the strap, having contacted the company multiple times, but decided that the time had come to toss them.

2) Is the shoe uncomfortable?:  The day has come that I do not want to suffer through blisters time and again.  I have found lately that I will avoid wearing those shoes that end up injuring me, and will gladly start investing in shoes that are better quality and won't hurt me anymore.

3) Do I wear the shoe?: This part was tricky.  I have shoes that I used to wear quite a lot, or that are useful for certain activities like my rain boots or Teva sandals.  I also have heels that pass the last two criteria, but this year were not worn much but have worn them a lot in the past.  Because I am in a transition and do not yet know what my future job will entail in the states, I was a bit more lenient in this category.

I ended up tossing 4 pairs of shoes, bringing my total down to 12 pairs:  

This includes: Rainboots, 4 pairs of fun heels, 2 pairs of comfy sneakers, flipflops, fave slippers, and my 3 'recreational' shoes for hiking and working out.

For me, this was good progress, and I will tackle the shoes stored in the states when I return.  My goal is to eventually own a small collection that I wear frequently and comfortably while still being stylish and fun.  What does your shoe collection look like?  Any shoe woes or difficulties in letting go? I want to hear your thoughts! Please share in the comments!

T-Shirt Experiment

After purging 3 shopping bags of my own clothes in the past two weeks, my husband sat me down and asked me to do something for him. "I want you to go through my t-shirts and put aside anything you don't see me wear and then I'll go through them."  I took it a step further and asked him to NOT go through the shirts I take out, and instead I would hide them in the back of the closet and see if he would even know or remember which t-shirts were missing after a few weeks.  I reduced his t-shirt stock from 24 to 17.  The 7 shirts have now been in hiding for over a week. The remaining 17 are a mix of casual and polo shirts that he wears on a daily basis, a few of them are work-specific that he should keep.  The deal is that if he can't even remember what shirts are in hiding, he will consider letting them go to charity.

My own summer wardrobe has been reducing nicely.  I currently have a total of 16 tops, 5 pairs of shorts, and 7 dresses.  This has been a year long process, and I'm very happy with the results so far.  My winter wardrobe is already stateside from my trip in May, so this will definitely make moving next month all the easier and hopefully once I go through another Illinois winter I'll have a better idea of how to reduce my wardrobe even farther.  I have been culling my shoes as well, but I will leave that journey for a future post as well as the results of the T-Shirt experiment, so stay tuned!

Has anyone else been working on reducing their wardrobes?  How is it going for you?  Please share in the comments and get a good discussion going!