Truly, one of life’s most unpleasant tasks has to be packing up house. As we prepare for our relocation to Melbourne I am in the midst of organizing for the move. One of the reasons I find moving house so stressful is because it forces me to confront the ridiculous accumulation of possessions that has occurred in recent years.
The trend in the Australian housing market is to put properties on the market looking like nobody actually lives there, but rather that the home is a display property. In preparation for selling our house there was some major de-cluttering necessary. As well as numerous drop offs to the local St. Vincent De Paul Society, including them sending a truck to pick up our more bulking donations we had to hire two skips to dispose of excess possessions. All in all we have cleared at least ten cubit meters of unneeded possessions from our home in preparation for sale.
I am not a hoarder, nor am I a shopaholic. My children are however fortunate enough to be loved by many generous relatives to shower them with gifts each Christmas and birthday. I am also not a practical person and really struggle with household organization, the result being a gigantic accumulation of stuff over the years. I suspect that our family, and home is not so different from many others around the country.
One of the pleasures of travel is being unburdened by our possessions, and hitting the road with just a bag between the three of us (myself and my two boys). The question is, how to live like that when still at home.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I love to give advice. How to manage jetlag with a baby, How to avoid mosquito spread infection etc. Truthfully though, I am not sure how to manage our own accumulation of unneeded possessions and have no advice to give. What I do know is that placing excess value on possessions is wrong. I know that this world desperately needs a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources, and that I want to live in a way that promotes this. While I hope that other families have benefitted from our donations to St. Vinnies, having disposed of two skip-loads of possessions to landfill makes me feel sick.
As we approach Christmas, and my children are preparing their Christmas lists I will be looking at ways to encourage them to place less value on what they are given, and more on giving. I’d love to hear from others of you that wrestle with similar issues, and the solutions you have encountered.
Since writing this post I have come across some practical solutions that other bloggers have posed they can be found through the links below:
Going Anyway discusses fair trade
Journeys of the Fabulist gives a great list of gift suggestions to help minimise the stuff that we accumulate during the season for giving.
I agree! It’s tricky with gifts and I think as a society we need to shift our gift-giving culture.
Putting the focus on giving can unfortunately perpetuate the cycle as others give back to reciprocate. Denying the role of gifts in our culture seems futile – or at least too much of a long-term goal when we also need short-term solutions.
I have been trying to encourage our family to change the type of gifts they give by emphasising that we often value things that aren’t “stuff”. The best gifts reflect what we value. It’s easier to do this when you’re about to move/often move/live in a small apartment with not much storage/etc – people can more easily grasp the fact that you don’t value “stuff” (although in reality I think this is pretty universal and not confined to people who are in the process of putting their house on the market!).
My 2014 suggestions are here:
http://journeysofthefabulist.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/twenty-four-gift-ideas-plus-a-bonus-idea-for-travellers-expats-minimalists-and-all-other-human-beings/
From past experience, it won’t prevent us getting traditional-style gifts for Christmas, but it will reduce the problem.
At the very least, I hope to be a single voice in a growing trend.
Hi Bronwyn. Love your 2014 gift suggestions and have added a link to them in the text of my post.
Thanks, I’m glad you found the suggestions useful. I just realised it’s only 2013 😉 but I suppose I’ll reuse them again next year.
Good luck with your house sale and the move, by the way.
I just did a spring clean out and was shocked at just how much we didn’t need. Especially the toys and clothes. I’ve written a letter to Santa to let him know the boys only need a few toys each this year!
Sarah, Santa received a similar letter from our house this year too.