I’m on day 224 of 365 days in this challenge. Today marks a milestone, not in the days or numbers, but how I feel about this process.
- Difficulty. It’s increasingly more difficult to find areas in my house that I haven’t downsized. For some reason, I keep migrating into the kitchen. There’s really not much left in there. I’m getting down to the things I don’t use very often because I’m done with the things I never use anymore.
- Difference. It is making a huge difference. I can keep the house picked up. I can find things more easily.
- It’s gone. I don’t really have anything that comes to mind that I wish I had kept. Knowing the freedom downsizing has given me, if I need something I got rid of, I look for options to borrow or get a new (in most cases, used) one.
Let me share some scary numbers with you. If this doesn’t make you think twice about how much money we all spend of stuff that we don’t keep, then you should quit your job, because you’re independently wealthy.
$17,973
This is how much it would cost me today to go out and buy all this stuff new at current retail prices. This is about $80 a day. But of course, I didn’t pay that much for it…
$10,504
This is what I paid for all this stuff. I paid 58% of the retail price, but you also have to factor in some of these items were gifts. You do it too, don’t judge me because I’m publicly admitting I have gotten rid of things that were given to me. This equates to about $46 a day that I’m getting rid of.
$16,970
This is how much money I could put in the bank over the course of a year at retail prices. Now let’s be honest here. I didn’t pay full price and I had a couple of pricey items on the list. Here’s the reality number. I took the 3 most expensive items off the list. With those out, I’m looking at $5,304 so far, equating to $24 a day. At this rate of spending on things I don’t need and won’t keep, I could save $8,760 each year. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of money in my book!
$385
This is the amount I’ve made from selling my stuff, mind you, I didn’t sell much. I decided to give most of it away and get out of my gridlock of stuff. It takes time and energy to sell stuff and in some cases, I think it’s easier to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch.
$2,111
This is how much the stuff is worth on the secondary or used market. That’s an 88% depreciation. Your stuff isn’t worth squat. Why don’t we think of this when we’re buying it? A few dollars here and a few dollars there doesn’t seem like a lot until you add it up like I did. I would have never guessed these numbers would be so high. At the end of this, I’ll share my spreadsheet with you.