How to Stop Buying Stuff and Finally Feel Content

You know, if I were to be very honest, when I first got this car, I felt very cool. I had upgraded from a minivan because the kids were finally old enough. To me, it communicated I'm in my cool mom era. I I don't just drive a minivan. No shade to the uh minivan driving moms out there, but I was ready for something cooler. And if I'm very honest, a big reason why I chose this vehicle was because of the perception that I thought that it was communicating to the world. I even picked out the black wheels for it. And I like that the windows were tinted and that it looked cool.

However, what's the problem? When you live in Minnesota, you have a vehicle that's 10 years old now and has almost 200,000 miles on it. It's just a matter of time before it starts to rust. Now, I've always been very resourceful. So, I said, Corbin, all right, you and I, we're going to try and tackle this. It was to the point where I didn't want to pay to have it fixed. I didn't want to invest that much more money in it. I knew that I wouldn't have this vehicle forever, but I'm like, I think there's some things we can do now that would fix the rust so that it doesn't look rusty, right? I didn't want the perception. I liked the cool mom perception, but I didn't want to be driving a rusty vehicle around. That's not cool. And so, we researched. We did our best. If your husband is watching this video at all right now or listening in the background, he's probably like, I know how this plays out, right? So, uh, it worked for about 6 weeks and then the rest started coming back through again.

But what's interesting about that is then when I moved into this new neighborhood, I was like, "Oh, I don't want my neighbors to see me with a rusty vehicle." And so I would just pull into the garage very quickly and no one needed to know until it was finally time to asphalt the driveway because the weather was starting to get nice and then I had to park on the street in front of my neighbors homes and they could see how rusty my vehicle was. But why do I care? Why do we care? Why do we care about brand names and the type of vehicle that we drive? Who cares? The vehicle still works. It's actually still a very comfortable vehicle to drive. It gets us from A to B. Why does it matter?

And so today, I want to unravel this with you. I think there are three main reasons that we continue to buy and why we don't feel content in our current circumstances. And I think if we can understand these, the solution is actually very simple. So we can stop buying, find more contentment, and finally be at peace in our lives. Well, hello. It's so good to see you today. I'm actually really excited to talk about this topic today. Why do we buy? And you know, now I've gotten to work with hundreds, thousands of women over the last six to eight years, helping them simplify and declutter. And this this right here is huge. Why do I care? Why do I find myself impulse buying on Instagram uh at 10 o'clock at night? Who cares what kind of vehicle I'm driving? Don, why do you care if your car is rusty? There's actually some really specific reasons why. And if we can begin to understand those, then it really does make a huge difference in um how we move forward with life. How can we stop impulse buying? How can I stop caring so much about the vehicle I'm driving and what my neighbors think about it? But we have to understand it first. And so I'm excited to talk about these three reasons. I think uh again uh I'm oversimplifying it just a little bit but these are the three main reasons that I've seen especially AC across women middle age and up. And the first is to s signal success to our tribe. The second is to feel different. We're going to kind of dismantle some of these beliefs around dopamine. It's actually much different than we we think. And then the third is to become someone different, a better version of ourselves, a different version ourselves. And that's not all wrong. Actually, none of these are all wrong. They're human nature. But again, once we understand them and once you understand how decluttering actually plays into all of this, I think we can each find peace and contentment in our own unique way.

So, let's talk about this first one. Uh, signal success to our tribe. So, I went back to school and got my masters in psychology because I just I wanted to understand this. Why do we continue to clutter up our homes? Why are we so attached to this stuff in our house e in our houses even though it's not making our lives better or easier? Why is it so hard to let it go? And this is a big part of it. So when we look successful then we believe that we are perceived in our tribe in our community in the people around us as a contributor. So we have this hardwired into us that we are all we know this as human beings we are tribe members. We are communitydriven. We actually co-regulate with other human beings. That means if we are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, that ideally we're bringing another human alongside of us and we co-regulate with them. We um we draw from their sense of peace or safety. We feel more safe when we're not alone. And it was funny. I was watching this program the other morning on therapy horses, which is so cool. And I know there's so many like really powerful uh pro uh programs out there with therapy horses, but what they were saying is that horses actually are are one of the most intuitive animals. they can sense uh human emotion, human feelings. If I walk up and I'm stressed, the horse can actually sense that. And then we actually can co-regulate with horses also. And that's why a lot of these therapy programs with horses are uh very effective if if you've ever heard of ecoin therapy and whatnot. And I used to when we were selling real estate, we would sell horse properties. Now, I grew up on a regular farm. What are horses? Hay burners, right? They had like no utility. And I would look at these, you know, stables and horse farms and whatnot. And I'm like, why? These people are so attached to their horses. They take better care of their horses than themselves often, right? And I'm like, "Oh, now I understand this connection that that they have with their their horse." Um, and many of us have this with our pets, too. But scientifically, horses are actually more intuitive than even other animals that we often have domestically. Uh, but I like it makes sense. But also, we're meant to do that with humans. We are meant to have people around us. We get a sense of safety from that. We help to regulate and feel calm and at peace when we are around other people.

So again, back to this idea, why do I care if my car is rusty when I move into a new neighborhood? Well, I want to look like a vibrant member of the community. And so the way that we signal this is often these days by the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the brand names because because what do certain brand names signal? Well, if I can afford this type of car, this brand name, I am vibrant. I am successful. I am able to produce. So you want me in your tribe, guys? Don't leave me out. Include me in your tribe. And it's funny because in the past I would have thought like, oh, that's just the middle schooler in me who never quite fit in and wanted the brand name stuff but couldn't. So, it's probably like linked back to my childhood and whatnot. And actually, no, it's not that at all. It's that we have as human beings, we have this innate desire to fit in, to be part of a community and a tribe, and to look like a vibrant member of that tribe. But what's the problem with this wiring? Well, uh, it's well, I don't even want to say that it's a false sense of, um, security that we get from it.

I do want to bring in our friend, uh, Maslo. I have that. Uh, real quick, if you'll humor me for for one minute, though, I'll do a 60-second commercial because we do have clutter camp coming up this summer. It takes place inside of our membership community, and we've been doing summer challenges for the last few years. It is handsdown when the most decluttering gets done in our group. Like, no contest. The amount of items and clutter that moves out of homes during our three months month stretch is phenomenal because we do challenges. We're going to do dumpster days. Uh we do a thousand item challenge uh just in case sendoff. Like we we do things that push you further that than you would on your own. And so it all takes place with inside uh inside of our membership community. But it is a 90day plan to declutter your entire house. We will go through your entire house. You just have to show up and stick with us. I will I'm in there every day. I tell you exactly what to do. It's small decluttering steps every day. Plus this like super cool supportive community around you. It is so powerful. We will multiply your declutter. You could declutter on your own this summer. I I like promise you we I mean we offer a money back guarantee. um that you will get three to five times as much done if you are inside of a community like this with everybody doing it together. And so right now it's on special. Our community is just $22 a month. Your price will never go up. 30-day money back guarantee. Um I want you to be successful and it's a great time to come in right now. Lots of new friends coming in during the month of May. We're uh we're doing uh hotspots and flat surfaces. Like even this weekend, we have like the hotspot hit list that we just systematically are going through uh all the flat surfaces where clutter collects. You are capable of getting your whole house decluttered this summer, but you'll be more even more successful if you have a strategy and a supportive community behind you. I love this. Mary said, "When I joined, I told myself it was just for the summer, but the group has been so beneficial, I decided to stick around." So Mary joined last summer. The kitchen is finally in maintenance mode, and the rest of the house is on its way. Everything is easier when the kitchen is in control. Isn't that so true? Uh Meredith says, "I totally underestimated the impact of your community and am blown away at how helpful it's been in my life in such a short time." And this was really sweet from Janice. She said, "Your daily support, resources, and passion for helping us create a simplified and peaceful home are priceless. The body doubling sessions have been life-changing. The coaches and moderators that lead them have created a space for progress, support, safety, friendship, and fun. I've never been part of a group as supportive and caring as this one. Thank you, Don, for leading us along the journey. It's my pleasure. This group is like my joy. Um, I'm in there every day with five minute daily strategy videos. We do live decluttering sessions. Probably one of the most impactful things we've added recently are our weekly home management classes. And that's where we talk about things like meal planning, mana, managing your calendar and your to-do list. And then we also have daily body doubling. every single day. Uh we go live at 9:00 a.m. and 7 o'clock p.m. for at least an hour and a half led by trained coaches that are so much fun. We have so much fun in these sessions. But again, just dismantling this idea that you somehow lack motivation or accountability or you know that you're not good at this. Most of us just need a clear game plan. We need an appointment on the calendar and then we can show up and get it done. So I would love to spend the next three months with you. I promise you, your house will be different if you stick with us. And so again, just $22 a month, cancel anytime, money back guarantee. Um, your price will never go up and clutter camp does take place within our membership community. So, uh, we'd love to see you in there.

But again, going back to this idea, so I I, you know, I love to bring in our friend Maslo and his hierarchy of needs because he studied this uh in depth. What do we need to feel safe? But then how do we grow from there? How do we find these other things that we just really have this desire as humans to achieve? And so I want to go back to this idea of why we buy to signal success to our tribe because this is where it gets a little confusing. It actually does create a sense of safety. I felt pretty cool driving my car for the last I don't even know how many years. I didn't. We bought it used and it had like 40,000 miles on it, which was like way like low mild compared to most vehicles I'd ever driven, but I think it was like six years before it started like getting rusty. I felt cool. Like I'm not going to lie. Like it did what I was hoping for. I felt like it signaled to those around me like, "Hey, I'm vibrant, right? I I I can I have a level of success." Now, some of you are probably like, "That's so shallow, Don." But it's probably just because you've relied on something else to signal that. Uh sometimes it's intellect, but uh one of the most healthy ways actually to signal to our community um that that they shouldn't leave us behind is actually by contributing and knowing our neighbors and for our neighbors to believe that if they ever needed help with anything that hey, please come knock on my door. I would love to help you. So yes, on one hand, having a certain vehicle, having a certain uh level of house, wearing certain clothing, it does si it does meet that safety need a little bit that we have. The problem is that it's it stops here in these lower levels because we only find physical possessions in the lower levels. So yes, we get a certain sense of safety that I have this stuff and I'm signaling that, but beyond that, it doesn't lead to contentment, to fulfillment. And that's what we're going to talk a little bit more. How how do we get there? Okay. Yeah, to a certain extent having certain things can provide a little bit of safety. We all need shelter and food and clothing. But then how do we get past that? And so I want to recommend a solution for each of these. So, uh, if we feel like our stuff is s signaling success to our tribe, we'll do what actually has been really helpful for me to realize that my vehicle was not as as important to my neighbors as I might have originally thought is just to park it outside and leave it out there for a while and realize nothing bad happens when I'm not wearing the name brands and my car is a little rusty or or whatnot, right? That actually the people around us don't care that much. So, one is just like this form of exposure therapy where we say like, "Oh, yeah, look at the data." Like nothing bad happened, but the other is to go out of our way to meet our neighbors. I was really fortunate. I actually um ran into my neighbor that lives across the street at the the post office because our bank of mailboxes got run over by the construction workers. So, for like the first month, we had to go to the post office to get our mail. What an inconvenience, right? And so, uh do you know what's funny though? Do you know how he knew I was inside the post office? Because my rusty car was parked outside of it, right? So he knew like, "Oh, there's that girl that lives across the street." And so he introduced himself, which I was so glad for, and we visited a little bit. And now I've seen them when they're I'm out on a walk and they're out walking their dog and whatnot. And it's been so cool that has actually given me a sense of safety.

Now again, what's what's the other problem? Um, most of us have all been hurt by human beings. And so when we're talking about how do we create the safety? We need people around us. There's also this little alarm that goes off in our head of like danger, danger. People can also hurt you, right? And so we also have to sometimes look at like, okay, are there any ways that I'm limiting myself and and who I'm allowing into my community from past hurts. Uh even just recently, I I found out about uh someone who I was actually fairly close with. Actually, not even that. They were like influential in my life. And then I found out that they were talking about me um behind my back, which just feels so yucky, right? And my initial reaction was I don't I was say a certain word, but there in case there's little uh kids listening in, um to heck with you all, all of you that fall into that category, like I don't want anything to do with any of y'all, right? Leave me alone. But I realized through that by grouping all these people together and saying you all suck at this, right? that I could be cutting myself off from others that they might fall into that same type of category of people or beliefs or whatnot, but they probably still have some things to offer me too. And so it's I get it. It's really tempting to say you all that fall into that, you know, that belief, that whatever that category, like I don't want anything to do with you. But isn't it amazing how we do limit ourselves then? And so again, I don't think developing community is always easy, but what I have found is that when I'm just in motion, when I'm out for a walk and I'm willing to say hi uh to the people that I'm crossing paths with, uh when I'm willing to look at different places to volunteer or a different uh community class to take or whatnot, when I'm at a kids event and instead of just like I'm one that when I'm at the kids events, I'm just kind of like, "Oh, please, I hope no one talks to me." Right? But instead of that posture, I'm open and I'm looking for someone that I can connect with. Again, we're putting ourselves out there. There's a risk that we're going to get hurt or shunned or their back turned on us, right? But most of us can look back and say that's where some of our most meaningful connections were made. And so again, I'm not saying I don't think this one is always the easiest to solve, but I do think it's worth the effort. And I again if we're looking at how can I stop buying and find contentment I do think this is a big piece of the puzzle because we are meant for community and it is really important the people around us.

Okay. Now let's talk about uh oh did I oh uh let's just go back here then excuse me for a second. Uh number two is to feel different. So why do we buy to feel different? And we've all heard about dopamine and when we shop online or when we buy anything we get a hit of dopamine and and whatnot. And what's interesting is for the longest time it was positioned as as humans were always seeking pleasure. So sometime that's in the source of buying, eating, gambling, drinking, um any kind of thing that normally falls into the category of like addiction, right? It comes in lots of different flavors. Uh some are more obvious than others, some are more detrimental than others. But it's like, oh, we're always just, you know, hedonistic, seeking pleasure. How can I feel good? And what now they're realizing about it is that it's not actually that. It's not about seeking pleasure. It's actually about avoiding discomfort. It's about avoiding pain. And so, when I'm on Instagram at night and I'm tempted to buy something that a really nice influencer is telling me is so awesome, it's usually not that I'm seeking pleasure. It's that I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm overwhelmed. I'm anxious. I'm feeling left out. I'm feeling hurt by an interaction I had with someone earlier in the day. And so usually this there's some underlying sense of tension, uneasiness. And we have learned that buying something does give me a little hit of dopamine, other things too. And I feel a little bit better for a short time. And I think what's the problem with all this? We know. We know, right? But again, there's nothing wrong with you or your brain that you're doing that. That is human wiring. We are always looking to avoid pain. And like your brain is actively working. If you're at all feeling uncomfortable right now, the chair is uncomfortable, my shoes are uncomfortable, it's too hot in here, it's too cold. Your brain is always going to try to get you back to some kind of equilibrium. Okay, adjust the thermostat, take the shoes off, put different shoes on, you know, whatever it is. Excuse me one second. And so there is nothing wrong with you. And so for some of us, it comes in the form of buying stuff. And what's the problem? It's never been easier to buy stuff. What's also the problem? This was a this is a tricky one to start to untangle. And and I say that because to break a bind habit. We haven't decided if it's like cold or allergies or a combination of both. I I don't know. But it takes a lot of mental bandwidth. Anytime we're trying to eat healthier, get out of debt, stop buying stuff, it actually takes a lot of emotional bandwidth to be able to do that. But again, I said I would tie this back to decluttering. And here's what I found has been so interesting. There's a lot of different tactics out there if you want to stop buying and it's like put something in the cart and leave it there for 30 days or 24 hours. Don't check out right away. Uh disconnect your credit cards from this. Unfollow people that cause you to impulse buy. I think those are all great ideas and solutions. But what else we found is that as you begin to declutter your home that a lot of these buying habits start to remedy themselves for a few different reason. One, you're confronted with every wrong buying choice that you've ever made. And that's a very humbling experience, right? But also, you start to find some uh satisfaction and confidence in the work that you're doing because when you declutter a cabinet and you get it all nice and neat and organized and you look back at it, you get that same reward. You get a sense of satisfaction. You can have been feeling kind of like a yuck day and you're like, you know what, five minutes matters. I'm going to set the timer for five minutes. I'm going to tidy my counters. I'm going to tackle one cabinet. and you will get a similar reward to if you ate or bought or something else when on a game on your phone, scroll social media, you actually get a reward from that. And what's actually really cool about it is that reward actually lasts longer. Uh that uh feel-good swing in your brain actually lasts longer, which is pretty cool. And so it's been really fun to see this progression, especially in the women in our membership community, how it naturally starts to work itself out. And this was something I remembered when I was a personal trainer. And you know, one of the tactics when you're trying to eat healthier is don't say, "I'm going to cut this stuff out." Say, "I'm going to add this in." So, it's not that I have to stop eating pizza. It's that I'm going to add in four to six servings of veggies a day. And that naturally starts to push out the stuff that isn't as healthy for us. And so, instead of saying, "I'm going to cut this out," we say, "I'm going to add this in." So instead of saying, "I'm going to stop all of my online shopping or going to Target or whatever your form is," you're going to say, "Okay, well, I'm going to start committing to decluttering for 15 minutes a day." And so we find something that we can replace. Now, there's other things, too. I'm going to start going for a walk, take a warm bath at the end of the night, read fiction instead of going on Instagram that there's many tactics, but uh decluttering is so cool because not only do you get those feel-good feelings, you're making your house better. Your house starts to become easier. You can out once your house is uh simplified. You can get these same feel-good feelings from cleaning. Like for a lot of us, cleaning is a really hard chore when our house is cluttered, but once it gets uh decluttered, oh, it's actually enjoyable. I enjoy cleaning. It's it's fascinating. I never thought that would be me, by the way. Remember, uh former messy person, super messy person, did not like cleaning. Did not like anything to do with any of that. Right? And now I'm like, oh, it's like enjoyable to clean. Now I get why some of you like cleaning, right? Um, so, so we don't look at what we have to cut out. We look at what can we add in? What's something else I could try to do with my time? And I do think those other things like know yourself. Don't go on Instagram at 10:00. I I can't, right? Oh my goodness, they're like, also, can we just admit this? Like advertising, marketing influencers are so good at what they do, right? So, again, nothing wrong with you if you find yourself ordering like new slides at 10:00 at night, right? Okay, I'm like, "These sandals will change my life." Right?

And that actually brings us into number three, which is to become someone different. And again, I don't think this is all bad. That often we buy stuff to become someone different or a different version of ourselves. And so whether it is stuff to eat healthy, to work out, craft supplies, um it comes again in lots of different shapes and forms, but often it is to better ourselves some way. That's not bad. That's I would think some would say that's admirable, right? What's the problem? For a lot of us, the inventory has crept up with all of this, but we don't end up using it. It clutters up. We've been working on uh craft and hobby items this past week inside of our membership community, and it's just I love having this conversation within our community because what so many of us have realized is when the craft supplies uh the inventory creeps up, the enjoyment goes down and we stop doing it. our our spaces get overwhelmed with all the extra inventory and all the joy gets sucked out of it and creativity is actually something that I want to talk about too. So these are the reasons why we often buy and are influenced to buy but what is the solution and so I want to be really careful because I don't think there is a clear formula to it. I think a lot of people want to say this is it these three steps will help you find contentment. I was just listening uh to a thing by someone I really respect in the field and they're like you got to find your meaning and I'm like like uh some of us know it some of us don't like that can be a tall order right and so u I was like but it made it sound and that's not bad right but it made it sound like you do this you do this you do this there you go you are uh moving up where' my hierarchy go right like you're you're uh moving up the pyramid voila And I don't think that's how it works, but I do think we can all agree on this.

Okay, so again, Maslo's hierarchy of needs, he wanted to know what makes us happy or fulfilled as human beings. And what he found was at the base are physiological needs. If you do not feel safe like if you do not have clothing, shelter, food, that is all you can think about. So it is very important. It is why it is the widest level of it. This has been there's some controversy around it but I think for our purposes I I think he was very much on track. So it is important if you don't have food all you can think about is food. And then next up are our our safety needs. This is our tribe financial safety physical safety. Very very important. Your brain is always scanning for safety. So if we don't feel safe again we don't think about anything else. We don't think about purpose contentment fulfillment anything like that. But then what he found was hey if you can get those needs met now as humans we all have these innate desires in us to grow to have some kind of fulfillment meaning contribution to the world and it very much looks different for everyone and in fact he did find that the next step up from safety is love and belonging. One more second. It's very important. We need to have people around us. Again, now we live in a confusing time because we can go online. We can get kind of like pseudo connection from people online. I actually love that we get to spend time together. I I learn a lot from you. I hope you you know, you've learned something from me, too. So, I don't want to discount this. I think this is so cool what we get to do virtually and online. And also we still need real physical people around us as well which is very important. Okay. So that's very important. And then from there we also move up to esteem and self-actualization. And he tell you know he talks about selfactualization as us achieving our potential um you know uh making meaningful contributions. And I think it actually takes on a lot of forms and how how I've seen it in others around me and experienced it in myself is that what is our intersection with other people? We only matter if it is witnessed by other people. Um, if our life is in intersecting with other people, if I have an impact on other people, then I have meaning. And again, it takes different forms for all of us. For some, it's speaking to crowds and uh influencing that way. for others. You know, my mom uh very much into rubber stamping and making hundreds of cards for the retirement center locally. So, using something uh that she loves where she can be creative, but also she can intersect that with other people's lives, too. And again, I think this is where this isn't so formulaic that it's different for each of us. But what seems to be um what I again what I've witnessed from others and what we learn from science is that there is something about being creative, whatever that looks like for us. It could be art, music, writing, poetry, um rubber stamping, knitting, quilting, but baking often there's some element of creativity that we're sharing and we're intersecting it with other people, which sometimes it's purely to benefit them. Um, you know, making cards for those in retirement center, but other times it's just doing stuff in community. My friend Marilyn loves to quilt and she loves going to quilting retreats where she gets to be around other people who share that passion with her and then others will make quilts and donate them to people that need it, right? But it's like this uh myriad where we're creating, we're intersecting with other people both in community and helping others. And I feel very fortunate that we grew up in 4. And at least in our club, I don't know if this was in all of the 4 clubs, two things that they really emphasized were creativity and also helping others. And so creativity wise, we got to bring projects to the county fair. And so we would do sewing projects, woodworking projects. uh my brother would make over a tractor. Like again, it was really cool. Uh hunting projects, flower arrangements. It was so cool to see the variety that this creativity took on, but then also we would go to the retirement center and we would play bingo with those that live there. We would deliver things at Christmas. I mean, all the time we were doing stuff. And so, from a young age, these things uh were reinforced in me. And I really do feel like a lot of my sense of purpose and meaning and confidence that I have now came from this experience and and believing that life is not about stuff. Like it was very easy for me to let go of the stuff and you know declutter my house and get rid of so much of it to free up time to be able to do these things. And now you know it's taken on a different form. I didn't set out to have a YouTube channel or a membership community. I just wanted to share something that I was passionate about and then it's what it evolved into. Um, and so I think for each of us, if we could look at this of finding contentment and peace in our life as a journey that we each go on and that there's not maybe three steps that that get us there, but it's something that we explore and learn. And what I think is so cool, and I've been talking with my sister a lot about this recently, is that when we're in motion, that's when it seems like the people intersect us. the class that we didn't know existed. Um, a neighbor pops by and tells us about something we didn't know about. But there's something about being in motion that then these things start to find their way. And also, again, I do believe that there is something about decluttering and getting our homes decluttered. For most of us as women, what we find is through that process, we start to weed out some of these other ways um that we've been uh avoiding discomfort. And as we declutter our homes, we start to find confidence in ourselves again. We start to create a space that fosters creativity and peace. Because when my house was very cluttered, it was hard for me to be creative. It was hard for me to even think about helping others. My goodness, I was just trying to keep my own head above water. But when I was able to get my house simplified and decluttered, it it it was like it fostered this creativity and this uh desire to help others and do what I could to cross paths with others. And so I think for many of us, even though I said I'm not going to create a formula, that decluttering actually is a very powerful first step, especially if you're just kind of like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what those things would be in my life. So that through that pro process of decluttering, some of these other things start to reveal themselves or at a minimum you start to have an environment that supports this that supports this idea of moving up the hierarchy and finding more meaning, fulfillment, and purpose. And again, I just want to reiterate again that we only find physical items at the very base level. Now, I'm not saying there's not certain supplies that help us in our creativity or helping others, but most of us have gotten so bogged down at the base level trying to manage all of this stuff that we have acquired that again, it makes it very difficult to work our way up to these other things that we aspire to. And there's nothing wrong with you. This is a very, very, very confusing time that we live in. We got to do we've been doing a just a real informal book club in um our membership community the last like month and a half and I highly recommend the book by Sheila Quinn. We will link to it. I don't have it in front of me. Um where flowers once grew. I might be I don't want to misspeak but she has two in a series of historical fiction and it's just incredible because it was the 1930s the dust bowl and reading about how little they lived with and literally like we're on our book club last night talking about this and the Amazon person delivery person I see them walking up to my front door with an Amazon box right and like this has been less than a hundred years how quickly this has evolved where we are just buried in stuff now it has never been easier to acquire stuff. So, please hear me. No failure, just data. The way our houses are right now is because we are navigating uncharted territory. We've never lived in this type of world before. So, no shade, nothing wrong with how we've gotten here. The only misstep maybe moving forward is to think like, well, you know, it is what it is. I just have to live this way. I have to keep all this stuff. I need it. And something we were talking about then was or in in the book called last night is, you know, back in the 1930s, they had to keep everything. They literally used everything. They talk about taking fabric scraps and putting them in the in between the boards of their house to keep the dust from blowing in or she would talk about letting the hem down on her dress to so that it would fit, you know, as she had grown. They had to keep everything. That was wisdom in their time and their circumstances. Now, we don't live in that same way. we actually have the opposite problem that uh we we don't need all of this stuff and time is our commodity that we really have to worry about slipping away. And so it it's uh the awareness and the sensitivity to the current time that we're living in and what our actual needs are. It's very confusing. It's very confusing, right? And that's why we try to stick together and do it together because these conversations are so helpful to sort that out.

Okay. All this to say though, I believe in you and I do think you have a great purpose. Um, and I don't think it has to be and when I say that, I don't think it means, oh, because you're going to go on to impact millions of people. Uh, we don't have to impact uh gazillions of people to feel meaning and purpose. Uh, impacting our neighbor, the people around us. We live in a time where people are so lonely. Well, and actually, let me let's just re reference the World Happiness Report again real quick, and then I do want to turn my attention to questions in the comments. Uh, if you have a question, uh, go ahead and put a question mark in front of it. It makes a little bit easier for me to to grab. But the World Happiness Report came out and it's a couple years old now. But it was the first time that the United States was not in the top 20 of the happiest countries in the world, which is uh, quite frankly a little bizarre because we are in the top however many of the most prosperous countries. even those who are not so prosperous in the US are still way more prosperous than other areas of the world, right? Like we know this. And so it's like wait, why aren't we happy? And they actually were finding that the age demographic that had dropped the most were our kids, our youth, like teenagers through young adults. And they're needing the same thing. They're needing meaning and purpose and they're not knowing where they fit right now in the world. But what was so fascinating to me was that what they found is that if you volunteer for two hours a week, once a month, no, two hours a month. Once a month, you volunteer for two hours, that you can increase your happiness by 30%. Volunteer once a month for two hours, you can increase your happiness. You can move up the pyramid mid by 30%. Wow. So what happens if you volunteer a little more, right? So again, it was just really interesting to me because it just reinforces this idea that how we find meaning and purpose often is by influencing others. And so there is just something really powerful about helping those within our context and within our community that really does bring a lot of happiness and satisfaction to our lives. But often to get there, to feel like I have something to contribute, it starts with getting our own house in order. And then that builds our confidence and we can be like, "Heck yeah, I can help people around me. I can do something to benefit their lives." We don't always feel like that. Uh when we've kind of been beaten down by our our homes.

Okay, let's see. Um, okay. Yeah, I love this question. Um, I'm in my mom season and my body weight fluctuates a lot with pregnancies and postpartum. Any tips on how to not keep everything after having a baby clothes for my fluctuating body? Yeah, we talk about this a lot in our membership because there's also many have different health conditions that causes it to fluctuate, certainly when you're in childbearing years. And so here's what we what I always want to encourage you is at any given weight, whatever your today body is, when you walk up to your closet, you only want to see clothes that are an option for right now. Even if you know a month from now, your weight's going to be different right here today. When you walk up to your closet, you need clothes that are only for your today body. And everything else either gets put to a different section of your closet if you have a big closet or packed away. And when we're packing stuff away, so we'll use like time will tell bins, a Rubbermaid tote. I like those canvas zipper bags that when we do pack stuff away, we only pack away our favorites, the things that have proven themselves. So from a size smaller, a size bigger, I want to limit how much I'm actually packing away because if you're like me, what I would do, I would just pack away everything. And then I'm still having to then, okay, then I my weight changes to this size and I'm going through and I'm like, and I'm having to sort through. No, you only want to have your favorites, the things that are have proven themselves. And if at your current today body, you don't have things that fit. Because some will say like, "Well, don't I won't have any clothes then if I pack away the stuff that doesn't fit." Then that's good data to work with, that's telling you that you need to purchase a few things. They can be secondhand or whatnot that fit your today body because you are worthy of having clothes that fit and that you feel good in no matter what your size is. And I'll tell you this that even if your weight is higher than what you would like it to be right now, if you have clothes that fit, you are going to present yourself differently. You how you the the vibe you put off is going to be different. If your clothes are tight, you're having to adjust, you're feeling self-conscious, that is a vibe that you're going to get off. So give off. You are worthy of having clothes that fit right now. And I know sometimes like, oh, if I buy clothes this current size, I'm, you know, I'm admitting I'm this size. I'm making it okay to be this size. No, clothes are meant to fit your body. Like, they're just like, I know how we get here in this logic like, oh, then I'm going to be too comfortable and I'm not going to lose the weight. Stop punishing yourself. No, we are all juggling so much. It takes a ton of bandwidth to lose weight. And so, when the time is right, do it and do it. And that's great. And then you can pull out clothes uh from your other bin or whatnot. But right now, you deserve to have clothes that fit and that you feel good in. So, pregnancy, whatnot, just pack away. Label them with the different sizes, but limit how much that you're actually keeping.

How to get your partner to realize they are creating a huge volume of clutter, but refuse to throw anything out because we might need it one day. Yeah, this often takes a lot of conversations because this can run pretty deep. There's a difference between just not wanting to get rid of stuff, but also finding your sense of safety in the stuff around you. And so this often takes conversations about, hey, I'm learning this about stuff. Hey, I'm, you know, learning this about clutter. It actually I'm I'm noticing it causes me to feel stressed. And the best place to start is by finding some common ground. Okay, can we agree that, you know, I'm mainly the one that works in the kitchen and so I need to have the kitchen counters cleared.

And then our main living space where we unwind at the end of the night, I need to have more simplicity in here. You can keep this storage room. You can keep this closet how you want. You can keep the garage how you want, but for now, can we agree on this?

And hopefully, you're met with at least curiosity. It doesn't mean they're going to go rent a dumpster, you know, get rid of it all right away. But what the goal is that you can start having conversations about it. There's curiosity. If not, if we're met with um shame, guilt, you always do that, this, well, then we start talking about the dignity line, right? And then there's often usually a deeper issue. But for it to be a, you know, a logical conversation or something where we feel like we're being heard, uh, there needs to be some level of curiosity in it or a willingness to at least hear you out, not necessarily just concede everything right away. But it often is something um that you have to have ongoing conversations about.

I've been decluttering and deep cleaning while my husband is away this week. My question is, is it helpful or detrimental to my husband's decluttering journey to do it for him? This is a great question because we'll often bump into this with kids, too. Uh, no. If your spouse is okay with it, uh, I would just go to town. Um, yeah, we all want to have decluttering muscles and whatnot. But I think, uh, getting your house decluttered and having that piece is much more important than learning the decluttering process. So, if he's okay with that, I would go to town.

Also, another tactic that Cass talks about a lot is that, you know, if she wanted to declutter an area that had Joe's stuff in it, she would make a donation box, say, "Hey, you know, this stuff hasn't been used. I think it's safe to donate it. Do you want to go through it though, but I want you to go through it first and make sure there's nothing in there that you want to keep." And often they'll pull out a few things, which is fine, right? Because the net positive is all the rest of the stuff in the box or boxes gets to leave. And so that's another tactic that you can take again if you have a a cooperative um spouse in this area. And same with kids. Don't worry about declaring kids stuff. So um Kim John Payne from Simplicity Parenting Child Psychologist I don't know what does me mean? Uh has worked with thousands of families though and he says it's absolutely okay for you to declutter your kids stuff. I know we worry about breaking trust and all this. you know your kids, you're not going to get rid of their most prized possessions, but don't worry about if you have to do initial passes on your own to get it back to square one. There are going to be so many opportunities to declutter with them in the future, like after every birthday and Christmas. How uh yep, did that one. Okay.

I am an empty nester. Having moved, I feel so lonely. Where do you suggest finding places to volunteer? I never realized how hard it is when kids are gone. how difficult it is to meet people. Yeah. So, do you know what's crazy? Uh just go to chatgpt. If you've never used chatgpt, it's like a Google box. Say, I am looking for uh places to don or to volunteer in my area. Can you help generate a list? You will be blown away by actually how many opportunities there are from schools to animal shelters to um different charities and whatnot. And so again, I think this is just one of those things where when we're in motion, just start searching, start talking to people that you might be surprised how the opportunities start to find their way to you as well.

I am a mom and hoping to have more kids in the future. How to handle clothes for a dig? Yeah, bigger weight. Okay, so I think we kind of um yeah, talked about that. So again, I'm a big fan of packing the true favorites away. Like we want to have those in the different sizes and whatnot, but I made the mistake in the past. I packed way too much stuff away. I'm like, well, I didn't wear this, you know, when I was pregnant this time around, but maybe next time. That never happens, right? So, only only pack the stuff that like really fits. And that's where like I like those canvas zip around U bags because they limit how much you can actually uh keep in there.

I like this. What she's saying is so true. I refused to purchase a larger size, but then I bought two outfits that fit and after a couple weeks weeks, I had dropped enough to wear my almost skinny clothes. Yeah, that it's actually scientifically proven like hanging a swimsuit or a dress that's like your goal weight does not motivate. It's a very very tiny small percentage of people that feel motivated by that. And so know yourself. If that motivates you, great, go to town. But for most of us, it shames us. It does not motivate us. We don't need that, especially when we're getting dressed in the morning, right?

And I do want to mention, too, I talked about it in my most recent clothing video. Uh, there's that interview with um Mel Robbins and Aaron Walsh, who is a celebrity stylist. But at the end of the their interview, they had three women come on and Aaron was saying that the question you should ask yourself when you go to get dressed in the morning is, "How do I want to feel?" And I said this in the video, but like at first I'm like me. Like I'm not really a like how do my clothes make me feel, right? Um, but she said, you know, the problem is usually we're like, well, how is this going to make me look to other people? And instead stop thinking about others. Think about yourself first. How do I want to feel? And when I actually started thinking about it, and that's when I came up with those two words of uh, you know, confident and comfortable, I was like, yeah, no, this is how I want to feel. And then when I do feel that way, I do present myself to others how how I want to, which again is important. We want to feel like we fit in and are part of a tribe. So, it's not unimportant. But if I start with me and how I want to feel, then it I get the goal that I'm hoping for. So, I'll link uh here to that podcast again. I thought it was so good. But especially uh watch at the end with those those three gals. I like they were all in different life stages, too. And I just I thought it was so um impactful.

Is it true that the camp is part of the membership? Yes, I want to participate but haven't had time, but my youngest is graduating next weekend, so I'll be an empty nester. Woohoo. Byebye. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, Heather. Uh, yes. So, clutter camp. So, I know many member or many friends are on here are inside of our membership community. Um, you know what we always say about our membership too is you're never behind. It is circular in content and so we just keep covering all the same topics over and over again. So, even if you are currently a member, you don't have to go back and catch up on anything. You just jump back in right where we're at. We're always going through all the main areas of your home again. And that's very important to me. We have enough things in life making us feel behind. And so, yes, if you're a current member, jump in for clutter camp. Um, and yeah, we'll we're there like we'll just be there doing the same things we're always doing.

And decluttering decluttering better prepped me for when, not if life inevitably happened. Yeah. dryer broke some point and I was so glad I decluttered clothes. Made that m time much more manageable. Yeah, isn't that so true? I agree with that wholeheartedly that, you know, decluttering and simplifying our homes, it doesn't take away the hard things that we go through, but it makes it so much easier to navigate and to manage them to to weather the storms that inevitably come.

Any tips on how to prepare for a move to a different state? I'm preparing to move in October. How can I prepare to take less and not keep stuff for just in case? Yes. Um, so what's really helpful is to look at everything in your house right now that it has been time- tested. So you have great data to work with and if you will make this rule, if I am not using it in my current house, it does not go to the next house. Unless you know for sure, there could maybe be a couple things you're like, "Oh, well that piece of furniture didn't fit here, but I know exactly where it's going to go in the new house." But what people fail to realize, I think, is that moving into a new house, it's kind of like when you lose a lot of weight. You know, when you lose a lot of weight, you're like, I'm buying new clothes. I don't care if I have perfectly good clothes. Like, I'm buying it new clothes. And often when we move into a new house, we have a few we have some favorites that of course we're taking with us. We have some stuff we use all the time. We want that to go. But there is this sense, too, of wanting some fresh new stuff for your space, whether you're finding a marketplace or thrift stores or or whatnot. And for many of us, especially if we've been spending any amount of time together, you probably do value a more simple aesthetic and having a little bit less. And so, if you will have this rule that I'm not taking anything with me that I'm not currently using daily, weekly, or monthly, you get a fresh start when you move there. So many make the mistake that we run out of time when we're packing and we just throw it all into boxes and we're like, I'll deal with it on the other end. Rent a dumpster. That's also an important step. And really try to see this as a fresh start and get rid of donate or dumpster any of the stuff that you're not currently using in this house now. And it's be so fun for you. Like it will be so fun for you setting up that new house and being able to keep it really simple.

Ah, I have too much Stampin' Up inventory for the time I've got to use it. How many colors of paper ink stamp sets is ideal to keep? What to do with stamps? Can only sell retired product help? Yeah. So, my mom is into all the Stamping Up stuff and she actually, you know, she'll have a beef with Stamping Up a lot of time because she's like, you know, they're always creating this urgency of, oh, this is a limited time. This is a limited color. This is a, you know, and I know other all these different craft lines do it, too. And I get it. They're trying to they're a business trying to sell stuff, right? But I'm like, wouldn't it be, we were talking about this with our craft stuff this week. I'm like, "Wouldn't it be fascinating if when we went to a party, the demonstrator was like, "This pack of paper will last you approximately 18 months, right? Like these ink pad sets, like this will get you through 2 years." But they don't, right? It's like, "Oh, now there's the new colors and the spring things and and all of that." So, what has been most helpful for my mom is to use the container concept. So decide how much space you want to dedicate to your stamping craft and simplify down to what fits in there. It's not necessarily always about a certain number of each thing, but as we simplify down, we pick our favorites first, we put our favorite stuff in first, the stuff that we use consistently, it helps to sort out the stuff that we're not using. It makes it easier to make the decision to let that go, share it with others, find a place that you can donate it to that can make use of it. And so I think the containers concept is the best way to go with this. We also talked about in our membership uh this past week too categorizing everything. So if your craft areas have gotten disorganized mishmash, the very first step is just to categorize. Sort stuff like with like get all your ink uh pads together, all your paper together, all your punches together, all your embellishments together so that you can get a better idea of the inventory that you have. And through that process, we can often start to see the stuff we're clearly not using and make an initial pass at letting some stuff go. And the nice thing when we're categorizing, we're not making any hard decisions at that point. Uh you don't have to decide anything at that point what needs to go, but it's refamiliarizing yourself and letting your brain start to work on on solving this puzzle.

All right. Excuse me. Should you keep the packaging boxes of home appliances? Prot protect them in case of moving. They take up so much space, but I'm scared of letting them go. Yeah, some people keep them for moving, others keep them in case you'd have to return it or um if you go to sell it that you can get a little more. We all say like don't worry about that. If you move, there's other ways to pack it. Uh if you sell it, you don't have to have the box. Um lots of people sell stuff without boxes. Sorry, this is bothering me. Um, and so this is something we have analyzed inside of our membership, too. And so we usually say keep it for a month to three in case you would need to return it. Like I just got my parents a new coffee maker. And Dawn being Dawn I'm like we don't need the box. It was literally the same bun coffee maker that they had before and it was like five years old and had just it just no matter how much they cleaned it like could not get it to brew a pot correctly anymore. Right. So I'm like all right I'm getting you a new one. Um it was like Easter weekend. The new one came. I'm trying to before people come um I'm like you know I'm just getting rid of the box. Who cares? It's a bun coffee maker. Same one. It's going to be great. Ah, after two weeks it stopped working. And so I'm like, "Oh, shoot. I should have had the box." But you know what? I I got it on Amazon. I contact them. I can send it back without the box. I don't even need the manual or anything. They just give me a full refund. So, it didn't actually end up being that big of a deal. So, I don't think we need to keep this stuff. Um, if you want to keep it for a month to three, just to make sure, you can, but I would put a pretty short lifespan on that.

My 12-year-old son is struggling with his decluttering by saying to himself,"I want to save this for my kids when I have them. How can I help him to let go of more of his things? He's ADHD." Yeah. And so, you know, anytime we're talking about neurodiversity is that it's always important to remember that um often there's a different connection with things. And so, this is not surprising at all and uh you know that he's thinking about his kids. And so, the best thing that we can recommend is to use the container concept and say, "I love this. This is so cool that you're thinking about things you want to share with your kids." So, we're going to have these two, three Rubbermaid totes. Anything that you want to say for them can go into here. And we practice it and we switch stuff out when they start to get full. And what we don't want to do though is say like, "Well, we tried that and it didn't work." It often takes ongoing conversations, reinforcing it, practicing it. So, keep practicing it over time. But this is one of the best techniques uh for any types of collections that um that your kids might start to have or develop. And again, those with ADHD or um autism often uh tend more towards like collections and having a special connection with their things. But we also know that they're especially sensitive to clutter, too. And so as their parents, we need to find ways to help them contain it and simplify it to keep their floor and their flat surfaces clear. And so this is where using the container concept with all these different types of collections and of stuff is helpful. And uh we often have to um keep practicing with uh with them with it over time. and often starting in small chunks of time and then working up to a little bit longer and as they develop like a comfort level with it.

Um, now that you've homeschooled, do you think it's easier as they grow or do you think it is easier as kids? I have three five and seven year olds and although I want to try it, I feel it's going to be too much. I don't know if I'm the one to be asking this question too. You know, our our school journey has been kind of unique. Um we started there was a a charter school in our area and so it was nice because once one of our kids gets in then you know the siblings do. So we went Adeline went up to fourth grade and then uh my thought was okay they go to charter school to fifth grade. That's when the that school ended. Then when they come out I'll homeschool them. Um you know and then what a great plan. Well we were doing well until fourth grade. Ado was in fourth. Me was in third. Corbin was in first. And then COVID hit and then it was like, "Oh, well now we're just doing school at home anyways and we were going to homeschool so let's switch to home school." So then we did and so then we homeschooled for about three years. LA this current school year we've done a mix to homeschool to doing public school online um and then this coming year three are going to go back to school and then um our oldest is going to continue to homeschool because she's very self-directed. And so would I have ever thought that this was what our journey would look like? No. It's all been just quite interesting to me. But when I started, I was appreciate I appreciated the wisdom from the other homeschooling moms around me who said you base each year based on what is best for your family and that student that year. And that's what we've been we've continued to do every year and I'm really grateful for that. And so there's so many factors that go into this. And so I do think younger years are easier um that you know like curriculum is less demanding for sure. Um, so I do think if you were going to try it out, these would be the ages to do so. Uh, it does get a lot harder. And I think that was part of it. I did not develop good systems as they were younger, too curious as they got older. And also, I work full-time, too, right? So, there's just, you know, again, there's just a lot of things that that play into it. We also have one that's very social. And so, you know, I'm excited for her to go back to school in the fall. So, lots of different factors. But I think um as long as you go in with an open mind and uh you know that you know a natural curiosity, hey is this going to work for us and you know look at the data and then decide after that um then I think you'll be doing the best that you can for your kids.

Awesome. Well, it's been so good to get to spend this time with you today. I would really love to get to uh spend clutter camp with you as well. Um, our community is so cool. It is the most supportive, kind, encouraging group of women on the internet. Um, it blows me away every day how when we live at a distance and we're connecting virtually, how we can support each other, see each other, validate each other, cheer each other on. Um, it has just been really cool. And I know we've had members who have joined and maybe it just wasn't the right season. It this might be the time to give it another shot. We've also really like simplified how you get in, how you find all of the content. It used to just be on Facebook. Now we have a membership website, too. Everything is very clean, um, neatly organized. We have an app that you can access it through. And so, it's very important to me that I don't want to add any more frustration to your live. And so, I want it to be simple, but I also want you to get like so much value out of it. And so we've been doing this for six years now and I feel like we really have it dialed in how to support women in getting not only getting their homes decluttered, but getting all of their household systems like meal planning and cleaning routines and calendar scheduling, to-do list management, getting all of that dialed in, too. Um, give us the summer and you will be in a your house will be in a completely different place come September. I truly believe that.

All right. Well, so good to see you today. I love you. I hope you have a really good day and I'll see you again soon.