The Big Purge

by Felix Wong | 14 Aug 2015

Aside from the six bicycles I have at home, I have usually thought of myself as being pretty minimalist. For example, when I moved to Fort Collins 10 years ago, I had only six boxes of various household items, some small bags of sports-specific equipment, and three bikes (one of which I left in California, where it still remains today). In fact, I was able to pack everything in small two-seat sports cars. And for years afterward, whenever friends would come into my house, they would make a comment that went along the lines of “Your place is very uncluttered. I like how do not have much stuff.”

So it was a bit of a shock to see just how many material objects I had accumulated when going around the house to take inventory of the items I have not used in over a year and/or wanted to donate, sell, or discard. I dubbed this exercise The Big Purge. During The Big Purge, I wondered, “How in the world and why did I get all these things?”

My closet is now quite a bit emptier, as shown in the featured photo of this post. I am also down to about 10 hard copy books, including some mechanical engineering reference manuals, a thick course catalog from my years at Stanford, some compilations by Peter Egan that I could not find at the library or in digital format, and Une Année en Provence by Peter Mayle (the French translation of his excellent A Year in Provence).

Inspiration

Being somewhat obsessive-compulsive about simplifying and living clutter-free, almost every year I have done some sort of home cleanout—only on a smaller scale. But for The Big Purge, I got inspiration from two people in particular.

One was my friend Adam Tow from Stanford. This year he adopted a minimalist uniform and discarded a ton of clothing—clothes he no longer needed because of his uniform and because many of them no longer fit since he lost over 30 pounds during the last couple years.

The second inspiration was Bea Johnson of the Zero Waste Home. Bea stated,

“It’s important to say that when you have things that you don’t need, you’re holding them from other people. You’re keeping them from being useful to other people.”

Her motto is “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot…in that order.” I am pretty good at the last three activities, and The Big Purge helps address the second. Clearly, going forward I need to be better about the first.

Look how wonderfully clutter-free her Marin, California home is in this video!

She majored in fashion design in college and yet her closet consists of “three pairs of pants, one shorts, two skirts, one bra.” Still, I don’t think her closet is as minimalist as Adam’s.

Donated Items

I donated the following items so other people could use them and I could get a tax write-off (in the case of donating to non-profit organizations).

I gave most things to the Vietnam Veterans of America organization, since they usually can pick up donations (excluding large furniture) from your home within 24 hours. But I gave all the books to the library. Many of the books I did not read, but I noted many of them on my reading list to either check out from the library or obtain in digital format (my preference) for reading in the future.

There were also a tent and a swing that the previous owner of my house left behind 10 years ago that I gave away in the free category on Craigslist.

• Over 50 articles of clothing, including 20 race shirts and about half a dozen caps. Most of these were given to me free at sporting events but I rarely wore them for various reasons, such as they did not fit or jive with my fashion sense.
• Nineteen books.
• An old handbag.
• The aforementioned tent and swing that the previous homeowner left.
• Other miscellaneous small items that are depicted in the photos.

Items Sold on eBay and Craigslist

I sold the following items on eBay and Craigslist for $410 after shipping costs and PayPal, listing and final value fees.

1. Garmin Edge 500
2. Outdoor Research Helium Bivy
3. Good Ideas SMP-BLK 7-Cubic Foot Compost Wizard Jr. Soil Machine PRO, Black
4. Garmin Forerunner 110
5. Topeak MTX BeamRack Bike Rack – V-Type Seatpost Quick-Release Mount
6. Nexcon solar charger 5000mAh
7. Garmin HR monitor
8. Nokia wireless Qi charging plate DT-900 white
9. Park TP2 toilet paper holder
10. Profile Design bottle for aerobars
11. Texas Instruments BA II Plus
12. Pool buoys and fins
13. X Light solar bicycle head light
14. Panasonic Battery Charger DE-A11B
15. Dell R832H 4GB mSATA SSD (STEC DEL00-01870-1A1CU)
16. FuelBelt Aero FuelBox
17. Kirkland Mini Wooden Hammer Tool
18. Adjustable Line Output Converter, PAC SNI-35
19. Motorola Moto E screen protector

Tips on Purging

These are few tips on how and what to “let go” of.

• If you have not used an item in a year, you most likely do not need it.
• A lot of people I have talked to keep things around strictly for sentimental reasons. For example, a friend whom I helped move into a 100-square-foot bedroom had kept a large cat scratching post even though her cat passed away years ago because the post reminds her of the cat. A solution that works well for me is to take a bunch of photos. Digital photos take up no physical space, can be filed and easily found if named intelligently, and are accessible from anywhere if you store them on the cloud (such as with OneDrive).
• My friend Tori, who also felt she had too much “stuff,” came up with a good rule: For each new item she acquires, she has to get rid of one. This could, of course, be modified to “get rid of two” or “get rid of three” depending on your situation.

A Note About Craigslist

Generally I have had pretty good luck dealing with folks through Craigslist. But I have also encountered several flaky people who are quick to claim free items, then never come and pick them up. I gave one person, for example, five chances to pick up some free wooden garden stakes the previous homeowner left behind, and ultimately she never did despite saying after the fourth time, “I promise to pick them up today.”

My advice, then, when you are listing free stuff on Craigslist: add a line at the bottom saying, “While I am giving this away for free, I ask that if you claim them, you must pick them up when you say you will.”