What's Hiding in Your Drawers?

Not in THOSE drawers.  Besides that.

I hate drawers.  Its too easy to stash crap in them.  Knowing that, I've made a concerted effort to minimize the total amount of drawers in my place.  No big cabinets.  No dressers.  No place to hide anything except for two small filing cabinets... for business and important stuff.  As a result, if I end up with small items...like maybe a cool keychain, a roll of stamps, a couple of flash drives...I have to deal with them immediately.  I end up walking around, looking like a human bobblehead trying to figure out where to stash the little buggers.  I'm forced to deal with everything and make a decision about each item.  Usually.

There's one small drawer next to my desk and despite my best efforts, it manages to fill up with doo-dads in about a week.  USB cables, extra keys, a spare case for my phone, a checkbook cover...Darn it.  Drawers are evil.

Yesterday, I glanced into one of my file drawers...it was full to overflowing with gosh-knows-what so I got out the shredder and went to work.  Bills from 2004, account statements from accounts long ago closed, instruction manuals from items I no longer owned, passcodes to long-defunct websites.  Amazing.  I cleared out a full cubic foot of space....  That's a stack of paper a foot tall...not bad.  I felt much lighter despite having eaten lunch just a few minutes earlier.   New problem though.....I've got more drawer space to drop crap into!  The only solution might be to get rid of the whole cabinet.

Sometimes when I clear out houses I have to sort through the junk drawers.  Often the contents at the rear have physically merged with the wood of the drawer itself resulting in an odd conglomeration of materials typically held together by old disintegrated rubber bands.  Archaeologists 5,000 years from now will have a field day trying to decipher what the pencil-staple-paperclip-eraser-bottle of whiteout-ketchup packet-thumbtack-melted rubber band object was used for.

Cleaning it out isn't the solution.  Get rid of the whole cabinet. 

The Ongoing Urge to Complicate Things

I've been doing well keeping things simple...until an urge hit me.

For those who don't already know, I'm a recovering real estate junkie.  Give me a crappy looking house that smells terrible and some profit potential and I'm your bitch.

What I noticed is that with most projects I've tended to grow weary near the end.  I was always anxious to jettison the current property, take the profit and move on.  It rarely worked out as simply as that and I've been reminding myself about all the time /financial/ personal juggling that has to go on when I get involved with a property.  Over the last few days, I've been muddling over a potentially tres chic project that would test my limits in more ways than one.

The property is in a premier location but has a host of issues, not the least of which is a potentially monumental expense down the road (in the form of an assessment.)  The upside is ownership, future profit potential and possibly dwelling within a magnificent and historically significant space in a great spot.  The place is tugging at me and I've needed to make the pro / con list.

The biggest con was that I would not be simplifying my life, but just the opposite.  The place needs an enormous amount of work and there would be a constant outlay of money and opportunity costs.  On paper the project has all the hallmarks of a money pit and the logical side of me has pretty much dismissed the whole shebang.  But why is there such a desire to toss myself back into the grinder?  I live in a great spot at what I consider to be reasonable cost.  Am I bored....perhaps crazy?  What about human nature causes me to be restless and not satisfied with what I have?  These are things I must constantly grapple with and I suspect most people do the same in varying degrees.  I have to remind myself what the goal is and that if I'm bored, I should get on the bike or go to the museum or walk on the beach....not buy a money, time and sanity sucking property.

It's cute but....nothing I should be doing if I'm bored.

A week's insanity....

Some weeks are a firm reminder of why I chose to live with only a little....My job is to help people.  It is a job I enjoy greatly but in many cases, there is little I can do.

Monday: I visit a large storage unit loaded with items of absolutely no market value...mildewed clothes, rusted pots and pans, broken furniture, Tupperware with no lids.  This is one of four units that have nearly the same items.  Gentleman had claimed "there are some really good things in there".... We check...not a chance.  I recommend a bobcat and a dumpster.  Four units times about the five years each has been a trash receptacle.  That's a lot of rent...get out your calculator...

Tuesday: Visit a home whose interior defies description. My guess is that living conditions are far better in distant third world countries during a famine or infectious disease outbreak.  I can't see the floor... it is covered with an odd conglomeration of old food, clothing, cat hair and ten thousand personal items.  I see half a laptop, about a half dozen remotes, a chair leg....Anything that was of value has been used as a scratching post, a chew toy or is stained or broken.  Looks like a year's worth of frat parties occurred and nobody bothered to clean up after each.....there's nothing salvageable of the five or so items they WANTED to sell.  The seller's felt the other 9,995 items should be scraped off the floor, boxed and transported to their new home because they might need them....Sigh.

Thursday: Visit to a hoarder extraordinaire... A woman who has kept everything she ever bought for the last two decades.  She is aware she has a problem, but seems powerless to rein it in.  Just last week she spent over $3,000 on QVC.  She has three large outbuildings filled with items, many of them never removed from the packaging.  I have to explain that she has grossly overpaid for all the items and there is no hope she can recover an amount even close to the price she paid despite the claims on TV that these items are of "heirloom quality."  Just not on this planet.  She stares at me blankly.  She doesn't understand why this is or that she has fallen victim to the band of thieves that hawk garbage on TV that can be purchased with only four easy payments plus processing and handling.

This is our culture....we are taught that the acquisition of things defines us, makes us worthy.  In the end, it is acquisition that weighs us down and wastes our time and resources.  I come home, still sneezing from cat dander and decades old dust and collapse on the sofa feeling utterly defeated.  The "stuff" has won this week.  It has silently infiltrated our homes and wedged itself firmly in our closets and outbuildings like some unseen squatter.  It is not easily dislodged.  Maybe next week.

Yup...For most people it doesn't look like this.  There's an abundance of CRAP out there...

The "Season."

Ah yes....that season is upon us again.

I started seeing the first Christmas sale hints not long after Labor Day....the sun was shining and if I can recall correctly, I may have been at the beach.

Fortunately, the business of ridding people of things has kept me busy enough to ignore the procession of invented holidays....Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Dollar Taco Tuesday....oh, wait, not that last one.  Facebook posts proclaim..."Only 16 more presents and I'll be done with Christmas shopping."  Funny how folks appear to want that process to end...sort of like cancer treatments.  I've listened to acquaintances lament about how they are dreading spending the holidays with mom, dad and all the belligerent cousins.  Christmas has, in many ways,  become a necessary evil that comes once a year...followed closely by the filing of income taxes.

Yes...Tis the sea-son for re-gift-ing....fa la la la la.... The season of family...giving....of waiting out in the cold at 1AM in front of a big box store.

This year...the statistics are in.  Consumers have spent a record amount on gifts.  More stuff for me to sell I guess.

As I watch the cars line up at the mall entrance, I'm content knowing that my family knows me now.  They don't ask what I want this year.  They know better.  My sister, also a minimalist to some degree has made a pact with me.  We will not exchange gifts.  Our gift to each other this year has been the new places we experienced together.  That's enough for me.  That makes me happy.  Thanks....I have everything I need.

I DO remember the warm feelings associated with Christmas as a kid.  Of course there were wrapped toys....but those were the days before I gave up the childhood practice of wanting everything that looked colorful or fun.  I can't remember what I received but I do remember staying up past my schoolnight bedtime to watch Charlie Brown, Frosty and my hour-long favorite that included colorful characters like Yukon Cornelius and an elf named Herbie who wanted to be a dentist.  I remember mom baking cookies, stringing up miniature lights and the smell of NYC pretzels and chestnuts at the big tree in Rockefeller Center.  The things I received were incidental (not at the time...but I realize they are now.)  It was the experiences that were important.  The smells, sights and tastes ...I remember vividly.  The things...I do not.

Next up...New Years resolutions!  Can I make it past January 15th?

Funny how the original caption of this picture mentioned Christmas shopping being stressful.
Holiday shopping....Meh...

Creep

One of the things I've learned about the accumulation of personal property is that it occurs slowly but incessantly over a long period of time.  Its not like we go from a zen-like empty house to a cluttered disaster in a few weeks.  The stuff sees to creep in and take up residence slowly...hiding in our closets and drawers and perhaps out in plain sight until one day we look around and say..."Where did all this crap come from?"

After coming home last night, passing out from fatigue and then waking up somewhat refreshed this morning, I am suddenly feeling that stuff is making its way back into my space. I'm not happy about it.

My desk is a shambles.  The amine DVD's I picked up at last nights auction for my daughter sit by the TV.  I also picked up a cheap blender since I didn't have one...but I seem to have survived without this bulky piece of kitchen machinery for the better part of a year...what made me suddenly need one...?  I'm looking at the shoes scattered on my floor with utter dismay.  I have six pairs?  Why?  My daughter and I decided to take on a project and build a cool floor lamp that resembles one I saw while vacationing in NYC...Now I have another lamp.  I now see 4 lamps in the living room....  No...I'm not pleased with myself.

Folks that know me think that minimalism comes easy.  Not in our society it doesn't.  Despite the fact that being an auctioneer exposes me to people who have an accumulation problem, which generally keeps me on track....sometimes the fact that items can be purchased for a comparatively small amount of money at auction makes buying them attractive...whether I need them or not.  So...being an auctioneer can be a double edged sword.

Usually, when I look around and find that the state of disarray is intolerable I will begin the periodic eviction process for my unwanted material guests in earnest.  That day is coming soon.  I feel it.

What to cast off....Part 2

Previously, I alluded to some of the ways you can make decisions about what to keep and what to cast off.  After some thought, I realized that the list of things to get rid of kept growing to include a few things I didn't initially think of.

The big stuff....

In our society, ownership of things is a badge that says "I'm successful" or "I've arrived."  One of the items I found folks bragged about most was the ownership of real estate.  I'm not talking about a family home.  I'm referring to anything other than the family home....namely, vacation homes, second homes and rentals.  Now I'm a guy with a love affair for real estate.  The trip to the attorney's closing table on a new parcel charges me up about as much as skydiving for those who like to jump out of perfectly good planes.  I've bought my share of real estate.

As the years ticked by, I realized that ownership wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  Telling friends I owned five houses might have given me a brief charge from a societal point of view, but immediately after uttering the words, I'd remember that I needed to mow a lawn other than my own or had property tax bills due or that a contractor needed to meet me somewhere to replace a leaky water heater that had ruined a tenant's belongings.  Overall, ownership of property can be a headache...a huge one that in hindsight, didn't seem worth it in the long run.

With the real estate meltdown, there exists the temptation to jump into that second home or the vacation chalet in the mountains that you always dreamed of.  I've gone through the thought process...many times.  In the end, I decided against it for several reasons.  First off, by purchasing a vacation home, you've locked yourself into visiting the same place over and over again.  Even if you decide not to visit, there is the underlying thought..."I purchased this expensive home and now I'm not using it."  That's not to say that some people don't fall in love with a location so much, they simply must spend a lot of time there.  For most people, after a few visits, the luster wears off.

Secondly, a home requires maintenance even if you aren't there.  You can close a house down for a year and when you get back there is usually a significant amount to be done in order to get the place up and running again.  This means you are using leisure time for maintenance.  Unless you happen to be wealthy enough to afford a full time groundskeeper in your absence, there will be lots to do upon your return.  Many people make the situation work by renting through an agency while they are absent.  If this works, fine.  But roofs leak, red wine will get spilled on your white sofa by a tenant and AC units fail during the hottest months.  The calls to write a big check will come...inevitably.

When I thought about it, it made more sense to simply rent a place wherever I decided to be.  I'd rather walk in the door and be greeted by a home ready for me to relax and take in the surroundings.  When it was time to go...I could leave the keys somewhere and be on my merry way.  Leave the headache to someone else and increase your flexibility.  Ditch the thought of the vacation home if you are serious about simplifying your life.

Ah...the mountains...again...and again...and again.  I'd love to visit the beach someday.

Where to trim the fat

Items to avoid owning...

1. Single function items.

 Think a Slap-Chop is cool for cutting up veggies?  A chef's knife will take care of that.  Microwave egg cooker?  Flowbee?  Just gimmicks.  There are thousands of products that have only one function, but take up space in a drawer, closet, cabinet or tabletop.  Its OK to cook an egg in a pan and it's OK to cut hair with scissors.  Don't buy single function items.

2.  Stuff that needs batteries...especially toys.

Well...maybe with a few exceptions....:-)  The only thing I own that needs a battery is my remote for the TV.  If you have stuff that needs batteries, you can never own enough of them.  Need two AA's?  You'll surely have 1 "D", a package of "C" and six AAA's.

3.  Big stuff that needs constant maintenance.

Most of us really do need a car but when was the last time you used your snowmobile or your jet ski or your boat.  How many lawn mowers do you need?  Tillers?  Blowers?   I can't tell you how many people have asked me to sell a boat that's been moldering in a corner of the yard, trailer tires dry-rotted, axles frozen.  Too late now.  Should have sold it when the motor actually still ran and the hull wasn't filled with mosquito larvae.

4. Purge your clothing.

If you haven't worn it in a year, get rid of it.  Period.  I know in my closet, the stuff I didn't wear ended up in the back.  I simply took everything halfway down the rack all the way to the back and donated it.  Didn't miss a single item.  Shoes?  How many pairs do you need.  Emphasis on NEED.  We recently cleared an estate where the deceased probably had 500 sweaters.  If he wore one every day for the 100 or so days our climate requires a sweater, it would take 5 years to wear them all....if he wore each once and didn't buy any more.

5. Duplicates.

I've been in houses that had three coffee makers, 5 drills, 100 paint brushes, 1,000 towels and 5,000 twist ties and plastic bags.  Nobody needs that many.  You can only use one at a time, two if you are gifted.  The excuse?  You never know when you might need an extra.  OK...when the day comes that my circular saw dies, the Home Depot is right up the street.  I don't need 5 crappy used ones in the garage "just in case."

6. Miscellaneous accumulating crap.

You don't need to keep your electric bills for 10 years, or your pay stubs or your canceled checks.  Pull all the Christmas stuff out of the attic and get rid of what you don't use.  Have a clear out day.  Everyone has to get rid of stuff.  Tell your kids to get rid of 10 things they choose...or 20.  Put it all in one place then have a yard sale or rent a table at a flea market.  Go out to dinner with the money you make.  Just don't use the money to buy more crap.

Make it a point to analyze the reasons you are keeping things.  If it is sentimental and you don't have it on display or use it, take a picture of it then get rid of it.  Remember...you can't take it with you and even if you tried, you'd need to dig a mighty big hole to hold it all.

How many of these lurk in your cabinets?  50?  100?....and this is just one thing you can get rid of..