Had to evacuate from a wildfire shortly after I graduated from college. There’s nothing like knowing that anything you don’t take will likely be burned to a crisp to really evaluate what is most important to you and what is not necessary. I had a very small car, so between the time and space limitations, there was a very limited amount of things I could grab.

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After high school I moved every summer for 6 years. Got really tired of packing and unpacking unnecessary items. Stuck with the life style.

honestly, more ‘stuff’ around makes me feel anxious and stressed. i keep my place as tidy as i can for this reason. if something i own doesn’t have a place i find it hard to relax in my home.

For me there wasn’t a specific event that caused me to turn to minimalism, but more of an evolution. A couple of years after I finished graduate school I found myself feeling lost without a clear goal of “the next step.” In hindsight, I think I was probably depressed, but at some point decided to take inventory on what my values were and what brought me joy So I could focus on them, and all these things were not related to stuff. I noticed that my actions were not in line with pursuing my values and joys, e.g. working more to make more money to have more things that didn’t make me happier. It was around this time that I saw the documentary on Netflix by The Minimalist (Josh and Ryan). If anything, you could call this my turning point. It resonated with me so powerfully! Now I had a name for what I was looking for, Minimalism. I then started researching the topic, found communities and bloggers about it, and realized I wasn’t alone. Started forming my own philosophy for my needs discontinued cultivating the lifestyle ever since ☺️

I started to get into minimalism after looking at my house, I spent so much time just dealing with “stuff” that I didn’t even really want. I wanted my time back, not only from dealing with it all but the mental burden before getting it out of my life.

The Reddit sub has really helped me learn new techniques to deal with it and prevent it from happening again.

Just to call out, if I’m having trouble getting rid of something that’s sentimental… I take a picture of it. If I like something in a store, I can appreciate it at the store as a nice object but don’t need to have it.

My parents aren’t serious hoarders, but they had way too much stuff when I was a child. They don’t keep trash and don’t pick up stuff off of the street, but they own a lot of furniture, and my father could never throw out a newspaper article that he thought might be useful someday. They lived in a gigantic house, which my mother is still in. It is totally full, but it doesn’t have goat trails or anything like that. Still, my mother has like eight sets of dishes, six or seven sofas, five dining room tables.

I grew up with similar bad habits, thinking that more was better. I lived in a pretty small apartment with my then husband, and we had stuff everywhere. I collected books, vinyl albums, house plants, so many different things.

I don’t know what exactly flipped the switch in my head. I think it was watching that old TV show, Clean Sweep, where they clear out two rooms of a cluttered house. Peter Walsh was the organizer and declutter expert on the show. I started reading his books. I suddenly realized that I had so much stuff, I had videotapes in the kitchen and cookbooks in the bathroom. It was crazy.

I started by putting things in their proper rooms. All videotapes and albums had to fit in the living room, where the stereo and TV were. All books had to fit on the hallway bookshelves. I got rid of anything that had foxing or was not in good condition. And gradually I started to see that my mind was much clearer when I had much less stuff.

My challenge now is to not buy. I still feel that I have way too much stuff. Like my parents, I have room for it. But I would prefer to have empty space.

Another challenge is that my partner is not fully on board with me getting rid of things. We don’t live together, which makes it a little bit easier. The next time he goes out of town, I am going to clean crap off of high shelves and out of my closets. I just like having empty space.

I just found that I find having stuff really taxing mentally. Both the thought of having spent money and wasted space on things I rarely or never enjoy; or the endless maintenance and cleaning of those things. I have found a good balance where I have just the things I need and some extras that I haven’t bothered with getting rid off.

It should be said that I am financially quite comfortable, so in the worst case I can just purchase or rent what I may be needing in the future.

My wife and I wanted to live on a boat. Sadly, it never happened, but as part of the preparation process we went from a 1200 sqft house to a 600sq ft studio apartment and got rid of a load of stuff to make it happen. It was great!

We did well for several years of keeping a small footprint, even after the dream of the boat collapsed, but experienced a slight relapse during the pandemic. Just now reducing again having moved from a two bedroom place to a one bedroom to offset unaffordable rent.