Declutter Challenge: January Update

You may have noticed the Declutter Challenge button on the sidebar of my blog. Earlier this month I joined in the Declutter Challenge at The Finer Things In Life. I've been focused on decluttering for much of the last two years. At first it was just letting go of the baby things we were hanging onto but it began to go beyond that. Last year I posted a series called Simpifying Saturday in which I shared the decluttering I was doing. This year I will be tracking my decluttering efforts monthly with the Declutter Challenge.

It became painfully obvious during our move from Kentucky to Florida that even with all the decluttering we had done it was not enough. Our previous two houses had lots of storage space allowing us to keep more than we really needed. When it was time to pack up for this last move we were very disappointed to realize all of our stuff would not fit on a 26' truck. We had to rent an additional 12 ' trailer to carry the rest. Not only was this extra work for us, it was also extra money out of our pockets. We are more committed than ever to live with less.

My goal for decluttering this year is 50 items a month for a total of 600 items by the end of the year.

Here is how I did in January.

I donated:

25 clothing items

I tossed:

12 Health & Beauty items

2 Finger Puppets

1 small ball

4 old knives

1 old scrapbook(husbands with school work in it)

I placed in Yard Sale box:

2 purses

1 backpack

1 pkg. Wall Decor

20 Christmas ornaments

My Monthly Total: 69 items