I’ve got the urge. The urge…to purge. Do you know that feeling? The one where suddenly you look around yourself and see you are surrounded by junk you never use and things you don’t care about? That’s where I am. Ever since our closet collapsed last year I’ve been irritated with the quantity of clothing I have that I never wear.
Me: You and I wear the SAME five outfits every week. Why do we need so many clothes? And we keep buying more!
Him: Well, when I buy clothes they are more of a replacement…
Me: But we never actually get rid of the things you’re replacing!
I look at that one skirt and can’t bring myself to send it to charity because what IF I need to dress up one day? I’ll have to go buy another skirt when I could have just had this one to begin with! Or I’ll look at those shoes, know I haven’t worn them in over a year, and still want to keep them for the “Just in case” factor. Just in case I need to wear my magenta Doc Martens again. YOU NEVER KNOW.
But seriously? It’s making me crazy. I mean – KRAZEE. I find myself looking in every corner of our home and contemplating throwing everything away. Just donate it ALL to charity and start over. And then only buying stuff we really need. And when we buy new stuff? We HAVE to get rid of something old. It’s a revolution, people. I’m making a stand.
I am planning on going through all of my clothes this weekend and reducing it all to actually fit in the closet. If it doesn’t have a “place” by the end of the weekend? It goes to charity. And “That Spot On The Floor Next To My Laptop Bag” is not a real place and doesn’t count for storage. The clothes must be in drawers or on hangers or shelves. Anything left without a home? Goes to charity. I mean business, people. And this is not just for me, this is for MrZ and LilZ too. They can either give me their input and choose which clothes go, or I’ll choose for them and I guarantee you – the shirt with the holes right above the nipples that you love to workout in? IS HEADING STRAIGHT TO THE GARBAGE.
Note from 2020: This would normally be the kind of post I would delete but I like to show that the urge to purge started long before the Operation Downsize of 2015.
OMG, YES. This is exactly how I’m feeling about my house right now. Clothes are a big offender here, but so is everything else. We’ve just got crap coming out of our eyeballs, it seems. Big Brothers and Big Sisters are going to come by with a truck on June 21st to pick up donations and you better believe that half the contents of this house are going to be sitting on the curb, waiting to go. You better hold me to that too because I may be tempted at the last minute to sit on the couch and watch old 4400 episodes instead.
ohhh good luck with that. i have been meaning to purge, for oh…about a year and half. it started as i was gutting houses and realized that if my house ever went under that much water, how much crap i would have to throw out being all moldy and wet and gross. i still haven’t done it. one day……
Oh, I so know where you’re coming from…I am the queen of “just in case”. I really need to purge before Kevin comes home. No. Seriously. I do.
Heh. Yeah, I get the crazy “too much useless junk” feeling once in a while and go through all sorts of crap and just toss it. I feel bad for MrZ though- you’re getting rid of his comfort clothes!
ya know all that stuff you want to get rid of but you hold onto “just in case”? put it in a box and seal it. then, in three months, if you haven’t had to open it? donate it. don’t even open it and just take it to donate.
i’ve done that several times, and i’ll tell you what. i don’t even miss whatever was in those boxes.
OHMYGOD, Robyn. That is the BEST idea EVER.
When you are done at your place could you come clean out mine? I will provide caffeine-free beverages and guacamole with chips!
Oh man I am going through the EXACT same feeling lately. I have all the just-in-case clothes too, only some of them are two sizes too small and some are two sizes too big. And you know what Clinton and Stacey say about that: you can’t hang on to those “fat clothes” just in case you get fat again, because they’ll just be in there reminding you of being fat and weighing you down again metaphorically. It is time for me to get rid of those things now!
robyn’s on the money there.. we do this every year, and if we haven’t worn it in the past year, it’s tossed (usually to charity). we have relatively little storage space, and this keeps it manageable for the stuff we really do need to store. (like back issues of real simple magazine.)
I have a big pile of sh*t ready to be picked up by a local charity tomorrow morning. They’ll actually come out to your house!!! For free!!!
I finally went through a bunch of things that I was holding on to “just in case” and realized that I’d been saying that since we moved in this house almost six years ago.
I also sold our crib and changing table on Craiglist. But there are some things I can’t get rid of…(thinking of the huge plastic storage bin of “special” outfits my girls have worn.)
Robyn is a genius!! I just recently cleaned out all the “just in case” stuff, “it might fit one day” stuff and “I really should have tried this on” stuff. Just my stuff filled up 5 boxes for charity. I need to try Robyn’s idea for my husband. He is a huge pack rat!! The fact that we might be moving in the fall is a great motivator. We’re not moving ALL this stuff again!
About once every few months, I clean out my closet of stuff. I have a box that is just for memorabilia clothes (high school/college ts), another for costume-y stuff (what can I say, I attend a lot of costume parties… and I take a pole-dancing class… I need some random stuff), and then everything that doesn’t fit into either of those categories, and hasn’t been worn for a year, gets tossed.
Of course, my best friend gets first crack at anything I don’t want, so I try to let her know when its clean-out time before I do…
If you’ve got anyone close to you that is your size, you could always have a closet-shopping party! And anything that you don’t want to pilfer from each other’s donate pile goes to charity. 🙂
Robin’s idea totally works. I do it all the time. I have all this stuff I feel bad about getting rid of because like so and so gave it ot me or whatever. But yeah I put it in a box then I have Scott donate it…because i’m tempted to look. He always has to do the dirty work.
sigh. Stuff. It’s everywhere.
I go through this all the time. I LOVE to shop and have nice new things but I hate clutter and junk. Every couple months I go through our house and garage and go charity/trash crazy. When I was pregnant with my son I went way overboard. I couldn’t stand anything out of place so I just tossed everything that wasn’t put away or didn’t get used. Needless to say this wasn’t the best scenario either! Good luck with your purge. Be ruthless but reasonable! If you don’t need it, love it, or if it can’t make you money toss it.
“When in doubt, THROW IT OUT!” I just say that to myself over and over when I’m in that mood. There have only been about three things ever that I’ve regretted getting rid of: a suede jacket, a cheap Pier One mirror and a lamp. THAT IS IT. Everything else I will never miss! GOOD LUCK!
Yep, I’m right there with you. I have been saying for about 6 months that I was going to clean out my clothes, at the very least. I have former-occupation (secretary) clothes that I don’t wear now and wouldn’t be able to get back into even if I went back to a secretarial job.
Why haven’t I done this yet (even though getting a bunch of clothes out of my closet and drawers makes me feel sooooo good)? Because I just haven’t managed to get bags or boxes into my car to take home so I’ll have something to put them in! So I can them take them directly to my car and then to Good Will! Because I know (from experience) that if I don’t have something to put them in, they’ll get piled up and other things will get piled on top of them, and six months from now I’ll end up with piles of stuff all over and who knows what on the bottom!