31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 21

I am writing every day in October--taking on the challenge set forth by The Nester for bloggers to write a "31 Days to..." blog series. I'm tackling Minimalist Living and you can click here to read Day 20's post.


Yesterday I cleaned out several drawers in my dresser and being motivated today, I cleaned out one more!

The very bottom drawer is now EMPTY! I only need to empty/re-home/purge from the other two drawers and this dresser is outta here. Very exciting!

I've been reading The Joy Of Less by Francine Jay and I highly recommend it if you're working towards a more minimalist lifestyle. She says that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. Twenty percent? Eighty percent of the time? What about all those other clothes? They just languish in our closet, I suppose. I would say that that the remaining 80% might include things like a winter parka or winter boots or a rain coat or other "speciality" clothing. I have a pair of shoes that I only wear when I'm outside and it's raining and while they're not rain boots, they work.

Just because I only wear those shoes a handful of times in Fall & Spring, does that mean I have to get rid of them?

NO.

In areas with four seasons especially, we need a wider range of clothing. People with hobbies where you get very dirty (I get totally FILTHY when I'm working in the yard) need clothes for that. I keep a few "icky" items to wear when painting. I think that stuff is ok. Am I justifying? I really don't think so. It's more about practicality. Why destroy a nice pair of jeans out in the yard when I can wear a cruddy pair that I don't care about. Saves money, for sure.

I took a look in my closet and pulled out the pieces that had their hangers facing backwards. I hung all my clothes with the hanger backwards and when the item was worn once and then washed, it was put back with the hanger facing the "right" way. I did this last winter, so it's definitely been long enough. It made it simple to pull out what I hadn't worn!

Here's the resulting pile:

Doesn't look like much, but that is a pile of 18 items! 18 things that were just taking up space that I can donate. Here's what my part of the closet looks like now:

Those empty hangers are from all the clothes I removed!!!!  (oh, and you hockey fans will know what that black jersey says--"Shanahan"!!!

On the floor underneath my clothes are two laundry baskets. Underneath his clothes is a huge pile of clothes and stuff. As I am not minimizing his things, I figured it wouldn't be nice to take a photo of the entire closet. Trust me, you're not missing out on anything.

Remaining in my closet are 25 pieces. I bet I have fewer than 100 pieces of clothing all told (excluding socks/underwear/shoes/jackets). Not too bad considering it's for all year. I did make a list of a few basic pieces I need and when I find those, I'll pull other things out of the closet.

The clothes from today plus the clothes I pulled from my dresser filled TWO black garbage bags! It'll be donated.

What's in your closet that you could donate???

Day 1 email

Day 2 magazines

Day 3 kitchen tools 

Day 4 junk drawer

Day 5 bathroom counter

Day 6 first aid & medicines

Day 7 kitchen sink

Day 8 plastic containers

Day 10 spices

Day 11 mail

Day 12 linen closet part 1

Day 13 linen closet part 2

Day 14 donate!!!

Day 15 outdoor spaces

Day 16 bakeware

Day 17 pantry

Day 18 laundry

Day 19 office

Day 20 dresser