Hey there, Mrs. 1500 today.
On last week’s episode of The BiggerPockets Money Podcast, we interviewed Anthony Ongaro from BreakTheTwitch. Mr. 1500 met him when he spoke at Camp FI Midwest, and really liked his story.
Anthony’s episode focused on minimalism, as it pertains to financial independence. One thing in particular that really resonated with me was his take on the stuff you already have, regarding the cost. He quoted Seth Godin:
“Everything in your life is a gift from your past self, and it is up to you today to choose if you’d like to accept them.”
He continued on:
“That money is already gone, unless you sell it, it’s never coming back.”
My big thing is:
“I spent money on this, so I can’t just throw it away.”
Even if I paid for it 100 years ago and I have no use for it.
Mr. 1500 is supportive of me getting rid of it, even though I think it’s wasteful to just toss. (We don’t just toss, we take to the Goodwill so someone else can get use out of it.)
The Waffles Collaboration
Then I got a text from Mrs. Waffles on Wednesday, asking if I’d like to take part in a Minimalism Challenge during December.
The premise is simple. You get rid of things every day. You start small, on the first day, you get rid of one thing, on day two, you get rid of two things. And so on and so forth until the end of the month, which is Day 31 for December, and I’ll be getting rid of 31 things on that day.
But if you add it up all up, you’re actually removing 496 items from your house during a 31-day month. (Spoiler Alert: December has 31 days. Jump in with both feet, right?)
I started Day One with this Frog Enclosure, that we’ve owned for at least 6 years, and used exactly zero times.
And on Day Two, we got rid of a pair of gloves that don’t fit any of the hands in our house any longer, and a really creepy doll.
Want to join us?
I’ve created a new Instagram account, called OfficialMrs.1500 to share the pics of the things I’m tossing each day. You can follow Mrs. WoW (and see all the stuff she tosses) at WafflesonWednesday.
(Here’s her article about the Minimalist Challenge.)
Join the 10s who have signed up already!
Subscribing will improve your life in incredible ways*.
*Only if your life is pretty bad to begin with.
Woot! Purge baby, purge!
I’m in! Do I get to count the two boxes of randomness I dropped off to the hospice charity yesterday!? It had to be at least a dozen items…
I literally took 2 huge boxes to the children’s hospital thrift store yesterday and I am not counting it. A challenge isn’t a challenge unless it is hard right? I’ve had that stuff in boxes for a month or two anyways. Starting fresh and ready to declutter aggressively. Wait, Mrs.1500, we didn’t state our reward when we accomplish this?
Mrs.Wow recently posted…Putting the Personal Back in Personal Finance
Ohhh, you’re a tough lady!
Well, since yesterday was the first of the month, at least it counts for the first thing…
And our reward is less STUFF to maintain, trip over, and worry over…. and maybe we should meet up somewhere for a frosty adult beverage
I like where you head is at Wendy!
Mrs.Wow recently posted…Putting the Personal Back in Personal Finance
I’m in! I don’t have a twitter account, so I’ll just keep track on my own. Keep myself honest. Just threw away 5 empty pill bottles. Because I thought it was the 5th today- and it’s really only the 4th. And I’m an over achiever. Hope to have time during my staycation at the end of the month to go thru and sell some unused stuff we have around.
Cathleen recently posted…Put in perspective: visit the graves
Oh, wait, I’m stupid. Instagram. Duh. Yeah, I can follow.
Tag us in your photos so we can follow along with you!
We are in. We played the minimalist game a few years ago. Each day we would lay the items out on a card table, take a picture, then put them up on Listly https://list.ly/list/15tI-the-minimalist-game
It got a bit wild at the end as we had trouble fitting everything on the card table. Some of the items are pretty hilarious. I got a lot of comments about the jockstrap. We put a big Goodwill box right next to the card table so that we could just slide the items in each day.
http://www.thefrug.com/lessons-learned-after-30-days-as-a-minimalist/
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Love this!! I love all the challenges you are taking on Mindy!! 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
Dan do I did the minimalism challenge in November. We had to house sit for a week and I’m still playing catch up. Day 24-30 to go still. It’s closer to 1000 for the both of us! I call that the compounding power of decluttering lol. If you ever see our home, you’ll know that we probably only own slightly more than 1000 items! I’m about to do a 4th pass of my closet 🤦🏻♀️ Great idea posting on social media, so much accountability! Have fun and can’t wait to read the after post!