Now that I got my 9-5 out of the way (sha-wing!), I’m trying to go through the other crap in my life and skim down as much as I can. Only instead of concentrating on just physical stuff like I started over a year ago (which is going pretty well!), I want to knock out all that emotional clutter clogging up my brain too. Things like:
- Random email accounts – which I never use but for some reason also never cancel.
- Dumb domain names – I just cut 10 more that will literally save me over $100/year!
- Subscription services I no longer need – I’ve got a few at around $5 a month from back in the day that doesn’t do me much good :(
- Open bank accounts with $25 or less in them – because I wanted to get the free bonus money, but which annoys me more now than the money was worth in the first place. Never again!
And those are just right off the top of my head. I’m tired of them creeping in and weighing me down without my permission. No more, I say! No more! :) It’s time to get back to the basics and rid myself of anything that truly doesn’t matter to me. Even the stuff that’s 50/50 in my life. If it doesn’t add value (or worse – it literally deducts value!), I want it gone for good.
In fact, I’m gonna stop writing this right now and go get started. F it. You got the point of all this already, right? Gotta rock it out while it’s fresh on the mind! Haha…you should join me! :) Pick 1 thing you’ve been meaning to cancel or get rid of, and knock it out right this second. Then come back and let us know what you accomplished. Cool? Let’s do it.
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What a great feeling it will be to get the clutter – e clutter or otherwise, out of the way.
I love the suggestion about canceling random domain names that I don’t need or use. I think a few core ones will be more than fine. At this point, none of them are really making any money anyway. :o)
Also, I’m going to get rid of all of the old music CDs and software discs I’ve been hanging onto since the beginning of time. I’ve got the music imported into iTunes and, to be honest, most the software is for old Windows PCs and I’ve been a Mac user for over 5 years now. Yikes!
Finally, I’m going to unsubscribe my email newsletters that I no longer read. I signed-up for most of them when I was buying or looking to buy something specific, but no longer get any value (just headaches) out of the daily NewEgg, TigerDirect, and CompUSA emails.
Despite the fact that I’ve worked in the magazine industry almost my whole career, I’m cutting back on magazine subscriptions. I can get most content I want online and the stack of unread magazines taunting me makes my shoulders tighten. Away with them! Sorry to my magazine industry colleagues. Hope my decluttering decision doesn’t put you out of a job.
HAHAHAHA I’ve been following the “Flylady way” for a few months now, and she has a new resolution of sorts every month. This moth is decluttering, so every day you spend 15 minutes decluttering whatever is accumulated that’s no longer loved. I’m actually going out with my mom (we do this every 2 weeks) and I give on average 5-6 garbage bags to salvation army or centraide. Love the feeling of giving back, and getting all those extra towels, blankets, clothes, and toys that I’m NEVER going to use. Good on you to get rid of excess baggage, no matter the shape or form!
Physically, I have been working in short spurts to declutter the basement. You know, I just got rid of the last of my VHS tapes along with the VCR!
Emotionally, I have just closed a $5 savings account that was opened for a good rate on a loan that has been paid off for years and I no longer have any magazine subscriptions. Maybe I should follow your lead on the e-mail accounts since I have six of them…
Any advice for getting rid of old blogs that are linked to old email addresses that you no longer remember the passwords too?
I’ve got some haunting me on the internet.. and they just won’t go away.
I just unsubbed from 6 email subscriptions i’ve been meaning to unsub from! I plan on weeding them out one by one! Thanks for the “shove”. ;)
cds, man. they’re outta here. I’ve been bustin’ my, you know, to get them all copied onto my harddrive. I did half a few months ago and then took them to the local used music store and scored $79! My mac holds the key to my tunes now…
I’m with you with the open bank accounts. Need to take care of this now…
Woot woot! Go you!
@jolie – Haha, I like that “e-clutter”. Knocked off a bit already, and on to some more!
@Andrew – EXCELLENT ideas! And CDs you can probably sell or donate too. I’ve slowly been getting rid of newsletter emails too. I literally ask myself “If I unsubscribe from this right now, will I really miss it?” and if it’s no, I take the few seconds and cancel it out and move on. But takes a bit longer on the iPhone ;) elthough I’ll still do it!
@Julie F – Haha… I have a few left to nix too. The only thing with me is that I usually never read/grab that stuff online, so if it’s physically gone then it’s pretty much gone for good (or until I miss it and sign up again! haha..) I also like being able to grab stuff out of it for art projects, but then I realize I haven’t done an art project w/ mags in like 8 years! Funny how the mind still associates things like that though…
@HappyKnits – YEAH! I love the Fly Lady too :) I just wish I followed her more – usually I just see bits and snippets online or from others. She’s pretty motivating.
@Wade – 6! Haha… you are worse than me, my friend ;) Good work w/ the basement & VHSs though – classics!
@SMB – Hhahahaa.. Yes, take snapshots of them so you can have pics for later when you’re feeling sentimental (or better yet, copy & paste all the text into a word doc to save for future reading) and then hit up the companies hosting the blogs and get rid of ’em. I hate having random extensions of me all over the place – esp when they’re out of date and/or look bad in case of future employment, if you know what I’m saying ;) Def helps being anonymous with this stuff though.
@~Carla~ – Rock it, girl!
@christina h. – Love it! Well done. I think the only ones I have left are rolling around the backseat of my Caddy, but they haven’t been burned yet so I gotta still do that. But I still like the feeling of putting in a “real” cd over the burned ones… always sounds better to me ;) Even if it’s in my head.
@DoNotWait – Do it! Do it!
@CityFlips – Why thanks ;) Your turn now?
I just closed a bank account a week ago that had been sitting idle for the past two years. It felt really good to let that bad boy go! (and get the little bit of cash out of it) I wonder if any of the e-mail addresses that I haven’t accessed in years are still up and running…
I’ve given up on cleaning out my inbox. I have over 27k emails, 477 of which are unread. And that’s just in my primary e-mail account! I’m much better at getting rid of the tangible stuff.
Love Flylady too!
I just took the time to close out a book club account. It is annoying to have to decline the selections of the month, or they show up on my doorstep. I love books, but I never buy them new anymore (with the exception of a couple of my favorite bloggers’ books).
We just cleared everything out of our Foyer (aka really big entry way in the center of our house that had become a dumping ground) and made room for my DH & kids to practice their Karate katas. We painted the walls an awesome red color & have their Karate certificates & such on the wall…but it is completely open & empty…and I love the feeling I get now from the energy in there! It makes me want to just dance around the room (since I do NOT do karate, lol)
It just makes me want to get rid of more stuff!
Great idea! I definitely need to get rid of domain names, e-mails (not necessarily e-mail accounts), and just any other useless accounts. One in particular that will clear me of clutter is unsubscribing to all the newsletters I end up deleting anyways.
I’m going through our house getting rid of anything, and everything that we really don’t NEED or USE on a regular basis. Once I’m done, it’s gonna be a nice big yard sale to save up for…well I don’t know what, but something.
Simple lifestyles usually save us money, and time in the long run anyway. Right?
@Mercedes – Yeah, find out and then delete those guys too!
@Shawanda – WOW. Email is something I have to really stay on top of or else I just go mad. I do my best to get most cleared out every other day or so. It’s the starred ones that eat up all my time.
@aj – Haha… well done! I bet that feels damn good ;)
@20 and Engaged – Yup! They get you every time…. Although if you didn’t subscribe to them all in the first place, you wouldn’t know which you actually ENJOY all the way – so we’ll all probably keep doing it and then deleting ;)
@HP @ Work At Home Market – Fo sho. Clean it all up!
Yahoo! Get going!
I’ve been throwing away years and months worth of garbage. The only thing I didn’t toss yet are about a year’s worth of receipts… I obviously need every one I can get!
I went through a little phase where I bought a couple of domain names that were never put to use. So I decided to let them expire. Its funny how not only do we have to deal with physical clutter but digital clutter as well.
I’ve kept two of them that I’m doing something with right now but that’s it. Those two are enough. I just think its sometimes better to experiment with a free hosting site like blogger and see if you’re going anywhere with your blog before you invest the money in a domain name and paid hosting.
already beat you to it J – nothing left to cull in my life, financially or otherwise ;)
My sister and I are gearing up for a yard sale in a few months, so I’ve been sorting & gathering the physical stuff for awhile. I’ve been making some headway on the other stuff:
-Unsubbed from newsletters I no longer want at work & at home
-Closed/deleted accounts on sites I no longer visit
-Going through the electronic files on the computer. I’m super organized, but once everything was in folders and appropriately labeled, I never went back to see if I actually wanted or needed the files. Time to delete!
-Tax time means going through the (obsessively organized) folders and shredding the outdated/no longer need-to-keep information.
I’m very, very bad at keeping in touch with friends whom I only communicate with online. I have a note from a friend in January that I haven’t answered. Will answer her tonight!
@Elle – Good idea :) Receipts can be pretty important.
@Jaime – That’s not a bad idea. I think owning some that you WANT to actually use one day is okay, but the ones people try buying to sell and make tons of money later are the ones that usually don’t make sense. Unless you get super lucky or actively try selling them.
@Catherine – What? NOTHING? I don’t believe you :)
@JennyDee – Ooooh yes – computer files/folders!!! VERY good to stay on top of and label nicely so everything’s neat. I’m one of those people who keep *everything* on my desktop in like 2-3 folders. so i know anything I will ever need are in there somewhere :) Hope you remember to contact your friend!!! We all get bad at that sometimes :(
My wife and I did a lot of de-cluttering before we moved last month. We’re in the process of buying a house and once we get moved in, we’re planning a HUGE yard sale. Everything that doesn’t sell will be donated. I want to simplify my life as much as possible.
And I second the idea about digitizing music. I’ve already imported everything into iTunes and I don’t buy new CDs. So we’ll sell all of those at the yard sale, then take the rest to a CD shop or used book store and see what we can get.
Consolidation and simplification are good things. :)
Hell yeah, doggy! I’d totally shop at that yard sale too, if I lived closer ;) Cannot WAIT until yard sale season! Although it means I better be prepared to get RID of stuff too to make up the stuff I bring in… I’ll just “upgrade” things ;)