15 Things I Never Buy as a Minimalist

OK, let's jump into this list of 17 things that I no longer have in my home. I downsized 600 square feet in the past two months and I'm loving it. Honestly, these 17 things came to me because I would never bring them back into my home now that I realize that I can live without them. And the first thing is that holiday decor that I used to bring in all the time that I had to take down wall art or put a nail in the wall in order to hang up this wall decor for Christmas or for Halloween. I have downsized that so much that now I can't even imagine why I ever did it before, because it just adds so much extra stress. It's all this stuff that you then have to store and get the storage bins for. And now not having it, I don't miss it at all. My favorite thing that I've added in when it comes to decor has just been bringing in like pine cones, things that we find outside and that small, important group of those sentimental items. Around Christmas, we bring out our favorite ornament. We bring out our favorite little houses that my mother-in-law gave us, and I don't feel the need to have any more. I think that's the greatest part of downsizing your holiday decor is that once you do, it feels weird at first not having your whole home decorated. But honestly, it makes everything so much more special. And every little piece has this fun story that you can tell when people ask and walk into your home. So I would never again bring in any more of that super cheap holiday decor, especially the stuff that I have to rearrange my life for. OK, so in no way is this list to judge you or to tell you what to do. This is just a fun list of things that I've thought of over the past couple of months. And the next one is that I don't have any holiday dishes or specialty dishes that I only can use on a certain occasion. Everything that I have is used all of the time. There is nothing hidden away in my house that you would find if you came over when it comes to dishes and mugs. And there is a big reason why. When I used to have very special dishes a long time ago, I don't even think I have any film of this. I kept them in the attic in our old house, and I never took them out because even when those special occasions came like we had Thanksgiving at our house, I would forget that I had them because they were upstairs all the time in the attic. And so what fun is that? And for me, what I realized is that I just want to be able to use and enjoy the things that I like all of the time. I don't want to stress about keeping something pristine for one occasion. It's just too much for my brain to handle and to want to deal with. And so if you're really overwhelmed with the dishes and mugs that you have in your house, then start tearing down those ones that you feel like you can only use one month out of the year or you can only use on very special occasions. Because what it comes down to is that they're not being used enough to justify the amount of space and the effort that you have to take in order to keep up with them and clean them and to remember that they're there. OK, the next thing has to be those highly specific items in our kitchen. We're only pulling that apple slicer out once or twice a month or those ice cream makers that are just sitting on the counter for ages and we're not using them. Now, it's one thing if we love a smoothie or we love to make our own ice cream and we're using them. It's a whole nother thing if you're like me and you'd hang on to these things like a crock pot and you're only using it once or twice a year. When it comes to those very specialty items that you see that your family isn't using all of the time, I have downsized an incredible amount and it has freed up so much space in my kitchen, which I absolutely love because having space in your cabinet allows you to feel like you can cook and clean and be more successful being and working in the kitchen. At least it does for me. So I've gotten rid of a lot of the specialty items. If I need to cut my apples, I just use a knife. If I have to peel a potato, I just use my knife. I don't have a lot of specialty items in this kitchen and it has worked for me and my style of cooking. I would suggest just looking in your cabinet and I guarantee if you look in the back, there's probably a few things that have some dust on them because we had really good intentions and then they didn't actually happen. Find those pieces with dust on them and today is a great day to get rid of them. A whole other challenge, which was actually a lot harder for me, was to go down to only one wooden spoon, one spatula. Thinking about decluttering all those excess of these kitchen utensils meant that I had to get over my fear of not having enough and pay attention to the things that I was pulling out on a constant basis. For me and my style of cooking, I realized that I actually needed a lot less of these kind of utensils in order to be successful because the more that I pulled out, the more that I ended up having to clean and take care of. Having more things did not equal, in this instance, making my life easier because I couldn't keep up with cleaning them. I couldn't keep up with maintaining them and even though they look so cute in a big container on our countertops, if they're not things that we're reaching for all of the time, they're getting in the way of us being successful in the kitchen. Okay, this next one may hit, may not, totally fine, but we have downsized our amount of towels and hand towels and rags that we have in our bathroom and this was an evolution over time. I used to have a ton. We had a bigger bathroom closet, so it didn't really matter and now after downsizing, I've realized I can't maintain that many towels and so we have one each, me, my husband and my daughter and then we have one extra for my daughter and we have, I think, three beach towels that we keep in our laundry room because we use those beach towels for everything, whether it's cleaning my dogs or the floor, whatever. They're multi-use and it has worked really well. I've also realized that I used to have a big problem with buying those decor hand towels that are so cute and so tempting, right, for all of us and I personally can't handle them. I find that I was not able to store them properly and when I was supposed to be taking them back out, I would forget and then I would go a whole nother year without using these specialty hand towels and I think they're so cute, so I'm not knocking you if you have them, but I am saying that if you're feeling overwhelmed and you don't really know where you can cut back when it comes to hand towels and towels, the decorative ones or the ones that you never really want somebody to use or the ones that are just used for a month, that's a good place to start. I have downsized so much when it comes to those filler items that we keep, when it comes to decor that we keep and if you guys had been in my home about six or seven years ago, you would not recognize me or who I am today and that is, that's amazing for me because I used to think that every wall had to be decorated. I used to think that if it wasn't, it didn't feel like home and yet, you know, the biggest shocker for me was that I, moving into this new house and downsizing and having less stuff, feel more at home here in two months than I ever felt at our last house when it was over consumed, when I had so much filler decor. And I think it's because everything that I brought into this new house has a purpose or a reason why I enjoy it and nothing else besides those two things have come into this house and it has made a huge difference for me. And so whether you like the decor that I have in my house or not, it doesn't matter to me. I do think it's really important if you are ready to start downsizing your decor to think about why did I bring this item into my home? Do I remember where I got it from? Do I remember why I bought it? Was it just because it was on sale? Is that why I brought it in or am I using it? Am I enjoying it? That gives me a reason to have it. And if you're there is a fly in here and it's driving me crazy. And if you can't answer those questions often for me, I realized it was because it was just one more thing that I thought that I needed to have in order to make something a home. And really, it just became a part of my to do list of something that I had to clean and I didn't want to. Let's talk about another one that I think is just funny because I fall in this trap so much. And that is to have fake plants everywhere. And then it turned into just having real plants everywhere. And I had to downsize a lot over the past six years because I realized that like everything else in my home, I do have a threshold for the amount of plant babies I can have. And it's probably more than some people, but there's still a threshold. I can't take care of 100 plants. I can't even take care of 30 plants. And I can't take care of high maintenance plants. They have to be something that can kind of go without being watered for a while and then can also deal with me overloving them for a week when I remember that they're there. So what I would do is I would look around your house. And what are those fake plants that you keep dusting, but you don't like to? Or what are those real plants that you keep forgetting to water? And then you just feel guilty about it. You don't feel like you want to keep taking care of it. You don't want to get it a new pot when it grows too big. And you don't want to find a place for it anymore. Those are the ones that first for me kind of highlighted what I could get rid of and still feel comfortable. And now I don't have any fake plants, but that's really because I love real plants. And I have decided the amount of time and energy and the kind of plant that I can keep up with. And so finding that limit for yourself. But I will never have no plants in my house. To be honest, I think they make the whole area feel warm and inviting. And I just like to have them in my home. But I did have to become aware of my own threshold for what I could take care of. OK, let's talk about our candle collections. And I do not have a lot anymore. I only have the ones that are soy based. My grandma got me this one and I love it. Smells really, really good. And it is a fall scent, but it's the kind of like spice pumpkin scent that I enjoy personally all year round. So it doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to be putting it away when this season is over. And so I think cutting down on our candles that we never light, the ones that really aren't great for the environment or our home and those ones that you only pull out per one season has helped me a lot to declutter my candle collection, which I used to have a whole lot more. But I realized it was kind of like the decor filler. It was something else that I had to think about, take care of, keep up with, move around. And even though it's something that I enjoy having because it adds a little ambiance at night and adds a little like romance and I enjoy having them. It's not something that I need a multitude of. And it's not something that I need to interchange throughout each month because that was beyond me. OK, hopefully the lighting here is still OK. I'm still trying to figure out where to film in this house. It being new, there's a ton of windows, which I thought was going to be epic, but I'm having a hard time. Any who's all the next thing that I downsize, especially when I moved in this house, is our extra furniture pieces. Anything that I was not going to use when it came to furniture had to go because already we're moving 600 square feet. We're getting rid of stuff. And luckily I had to clutter for so long, so there wasn't a ton of stuff to have to get rid of. But I know we moved out my husband's massive chest he had because there was no room for it in our home. My husband is reusing it in his shed. That is his like man's space. And so that's fine. But there was definitely a few pieces that we had to get rid of. And what I'm realizing as I get older is that where I love beautiful pieces of furniture, it does have to have a purpose in order for it to be in my home, even more so now that I have less space. But having a bunch of pieces of furniture that aren't being used and don't have a specific purpose means that it's just another flat surface for me to clutter up and have to clean later when I don't want to. And so think about your accent furniture pieces, those side tables, the coffee tables, behind the couch tables, any little piece of furniture that we might just think is adorable. Does it have a purpose in your home? Or has it just become a clutter catcher, a place that you can put all that filler decor that you brought in? And if that's the case, then test whether it really is in the capacity for you to happily clean it. Or is it like me? And maybe it's beyond your threshold. OK, so I'm basically calling out my old self here. So please don't take this personally. But my old self used to exchange my throw blankets and pillows every season, maybe even more. And one of the big reasons was because one, I like seasonal decor. I'm not totally against it. So I thought that was like a big bang for your buck is changing out all your pillows and all your blankets. But there was a few problems with it. One, I would buy these very cheap. And so a lot of times they wouldn't even last me through the full season, through the next year, especially if I had to store them. They were not looking cute the next year. And so I was buying things that were cheap. And I was just buying like one of the first things that I saw in the store that I could afford. And I realized that all that effort in changing out my pillows and throw pillows was a waste of my money. And it was a waste of my time because there are different ways that I like decorating now for different seasons that give a cute little punch to each room without overwhelming the space and without having to have a lot of this stuff stored throughout the year. And so whether you have a smaller house like myself and you don't have a lot of places to put all this holiday decor or you're just ready to change that bad cycle that a lot of us are in, in buying these cheap pillows and throw blankets, it's really nice when you can just keep out what you have all year round and not change it. Now, I have heard some really great ideas about just changing out pillowcases. And honestly, I think that's genius. I think that's what my mother-in-law said she does. She likes to change those out. And I think that's really smart. But it wasn't something that I could keep up with. And so for me, I just keep out the same pillows all the time. Honestly, the ones on our couch we've had forever and they do eventually need to be changed out. But the only things that I look for now when I'm buying new pillows and throw blankets is something that I can use full year round and keep it out. And is it something that is has a level of quality that's going to be able to maintain at least several years of a lot of people and animals jumping on it and enjoying them. Then I can bring those things in my home. OK, one of my favorite things about this house in particular is that it didn't have any like room rugs that were room rugs. That's not the right word. It didn't have any areas in this house that is just a rug. What? That doesn't even make sense. OK, so I have some rugs in each room now, but all of the floors are like hardwood floors or tile. There we go. We got there. Right, guys? So our last house downstairs was a huge like wall to wall carpeting. There we go. OK, wall to wall carpeting. And I hated it. It was smelly. It was hard to clean. And it was just a constant cycle of me trying to get the dog smell out of it. And now I love it. Here is just tile. It's hardwood. This is a nineteen fifty five home. So I guess they didn't do wall to wall carpeting back then, which I love. And so I have brought in two small rugs. One is in this sunroom and the other one is in our living area, our living room. And they are both smaller. So they're easy for me to pick up myself to move them. If I need to clean them, they're easy to clean and they can go into our washing machine and be clean that way when they need to have more of a deep clean, which I love. So if you are thinking about changing up the rugs in your room, I highly recommend looking at the washable rugs now and trying to get rugs that are smaller, easier for you to manage, because I mean, I'm thirty seven, but even at thirty seven, I have such a hard time picking up those massive rugs I used to have and moving them. I always needed to get my husband to help me, which was just irritating because, you know, independent women, we want to do everything ourself. And so I love having that independence now to be able to clean these things and move them whenever I need to without anybody's help. OK, so I multitasking. I have the washer machine going, so hopefully it's not too loud. But the next one is that I don't buy any planners until I finish my last planner and I don't buy any notebooks for myself until I finish the notebook that I'm using. And if you're somebody who has to take a list like myself, and honestly, I have to make my list on paper because I'm from the old times. So I have to have it black and white on a piece of paper in order for me to be able to check it off and feel successful. Anywho, I love having a planner and a notebook, but I've had to stop myself so many times from buying new planners and notebooks until I am finished, because I will then move on to the next one without finishing the last one. And it's such a waste of money, such a waste of space and time to have all of these excess when you're not using them. And so one of the things that I have been hanging on to is my planner. I've had it for over a year now, and it's winding down to the very last pages, which is honestly very, very rewarding for me. And I think a lot of us miss that dopamine hit that you get when you finish a journal or an agenda because we rush to the next one before the other one is finished. OK, so how is this list hitting? Is there anything that you think you can declutter? If you already decluttered all these things, you don't buy them anymore. I would love to know in the comments below. And also, if you're not already on this group right here, then hit that subscribe button and join us. We are a fun little bunch. And of course, if you're already doing this with us, then throw a heart emoji down below, because we all like to know we're not alone here, right? And so the next one is having those extra phone chargers, those extra cords that we're not using, but maybe they came in a pack of two or three, or maybe we're hanging on to our old one just in case our new one breaks. It's crazy. Those tiny things that usually honestly don't cost that much money, but they're so hard for us to get rid of. And cords is definitely one of them for me. And so one of my favorite things lately has been that my iPhone that I have has the same charger as my husband's Google phone, whatever those are called. Android, there we go. That's the word. And so where we used to have to have completely separate cords on everything, now we can have the same. So I have a charger on my side. My husband has a charger on his side. And then we have one extra one that actually also goes to my husband's computer. It's the same cord, the same like button thing that goes into our phones that goes into his computer. And so it's awesome. We have been able to streamline so much the cords that are in our house. They're just those extra little things that we end up tripping over or they get in the way. And we have this whole bin of them at the end of the day. And now we don't have to because they've all streamlined all of the chargers. And so that might be something that you can look through today. Getting rid of those older ones that you're not really using because really it goes down to that minimalist. The minimalist, what is it? Ryan and Josh that talk about the rule of 20. Does it cost less than $20? Could you get it again in 20 minutes or less? That idea has always really helped me when it came to chargers because yes, most chargers are pretty cheap. Yes, we can usually get them again if and when ours end up breaking. Okay, who's guilty of this one? Do you have bins in your house that you have all of your just-in-case items in it and maybe you started to organize clutter? Okay, I've been there. And what I've realized over the years is that as much as I want to organize and I just want to get it done and I want everything to look right and function and flow, it wasn't until I sat myself down and did some bigger declutters and took some real time to think about what I was using and not using and simplify the things in my house that now my organization makes a lot more sense and it works and it flows. But it was the problem that I kept all of these bins to store the clutter that I thought I had to have or to store the clutter that I wasn't ready to get rid of yet. And so I had all of these bins of basic clutter. Today we are going to go through those bins. I want to challenge yourself to question why it is so difficult for you to get rid of these things in this bin. And I have a video actually coming out soon that I'm going to address some of the hardest things for us to get rid of and why that is because I have been there. Before that video comes out, today I want you to look around your house and see if you have any bins like I used to have that are just full of clutter. And we don't know what to do with it yet. It's an honest thing that we all kind of go through. And a lot of times we push those bins in the back of the closet or we take them out to the shed and we just don't want to look at them anymore. But a lot of times that kind of clutter, even though it's out of sight, out of mind, we think that it's not going to bother us. It does, because every time you go in that closet for something, there's things that are in the way of you being successful and finding the things that you need. Every time you go out to the shed, you're reminded that you've hidden these things from yourself. And so that list, that Rolodex list of things that you need to get done doesn't go away just because we hide these things. OK, why not? Let's just end on a fun one. And something that I no longer buy is decorative floor mats for outside or right inside my house. I have the same doormats, guys. I have the same ones and I brought them from my old house and I still have them and they're the same ones that I've had for a while. I do rotate them around for the main door. Once that one gets too old, I'll rotate it to a different door that we don't use as much. Does anyone else do that? But I don't buy floor mats or decor that I put in my kitchen anymore or by the door. That's just for one season. And it goes along with the hand towels. It goes along with the other seasonal decor. And it really comes down to the idea that I do not want to be a storage unit. I do not want to be a store of all of these little things. And yes, they are so cute. So if you love them, I'm not knocking it. But I could not handle keeping up with all of that stuff. It wasn't the kind of decor that I really enjoyed looking at. It was just one extra thing that I thought I needed to have. And so getting rid of those very highly seasonal doormats, rugs has freed up so much space in the small bins that I do keep for our seasonal decor. And amazingly, it has not impacted me at all. We still keep a very fun house. We still have our Christmas parties every year with my daughter and her friends. And nobody, no child or adult has ever mentioned that I don't have a cute mat outside for Christmas. Isn't that amazing, right? We always think that somebody's going to say something, but never happened and we still have a great time. So if you have enjoyed this, which I certainly have, I thought this was fun, then let me know. And of course, if you are decluttering, then click on one of these videos right here, because I guarantee that they are going to continue to help you. And I wish you guys all the very best.